Birding is pretty much done for the year now due to the imminent arrival of Christmas, Twixtmas and New Years but I'm looking forward to starting up again properly when 2025 begins. My usual pre-Christmas visit to Slimbridge has been postponed until January and I've no other real birding plans in the pipeline but I wanted one last birdy day out somewhere further afield before 2024 comes to an end and so I headed off to Bowling Green Marsh on Saturday 21st December for a look about.
The Saturday before Christmas Day is either a good day to travel by train or a bad day and while I hoped it would be the former I suspected it would be the latter. The weather forecast wasn't great either but I figured I could sit in the bird hide at Bowling Green Marsh and be protected from the worst of the rain.
It was dry when I left home to walk to the train station at just after 7am and the train left for Exeter on time and wasn't too busy although it was still pitch black as we left Plymouth on what is the "shortest day" of the year. On arriving at Topsham at around 9:30am it was grey and claggy with spots of rain in the wind but the forecasted rain never did materialise.
I headed off to the hide at Bowling Green Marsh to find just one birder already there, a surprise as the tide was coming up to being high and plenty of birds were roosting out on the Marsh. I quickly found the immature male Scaup that's been present here for a while now busily diving away out on the water but even better was a female Pochard diving away with it, both rare birds in Devon these days.
I set up my scope and scanned about, eventually picking up a Ruff, a Snipe, a Curlew, 2 Greenshank, 16 Avocet and a few Dunlin amongst the numerous Redshank, Lapwing and Black-tailed Godwit present. Psycho the Lesser Black-backed Gull duly arrived and spooked all the waders into the air before they resettled, another scan through the waders revealed a Spotted Redshank and eventually the Long-billed Dowitcher which showed very well. It was busily feeding away amongst the roosting Redshank and constantly pecked at them to get out of its way before it had a quick preen and then flew off towards The Clyst.
Brent Geese, a Greylag Goose, 2 Egyptian Geese and an adult and immature Mute Swan flew over the Marsh while just 2 Canada Geese were seen out on the water. Teal, Shoveler, Mallard, Wigeon and Pintail also showed very nicely with the Teal busily calling and displaying together.
A Chiffchaff, a female Bullfinch, a Grey Heron, a Mistle Thrush, a Little Egret, a Great Spotted Woodpecker, 4 Stock Dove, a male Stonechat, a Buzzard and a Raven were also of note.
I headed back to Topsham station to catch the train back to Dawlish Warren, the train was much busier this time and at only 2 coaches long not the best of planning for passengers on the last Saturday before Christmas Day.
The train was a few minutes delayed leaving Exeter St.Davids but as we hurtled along the side of The Exe towards Dawlish Warren I saw flocks of Brent Geese at Turf, 4 Greenshank at Powderham and a Great Northern Diver at Starcross.
It was cool, grey and breezy at Dawlish Warren so I just had a quick wander around before heading back to the station to catch the train home to Plymouth. There wasn't much to see anyway with 6 Great Crested Grebe and a distant adult Gannet offshore, 2 male and 3 female Shoveler and a Mute Swan on the Main Pond and a Song Thrush feeding with a Blackbird out on the grass the only birds of note - certainly a contrast to all the earlier excitement at Bowling Green Marsh.
The train from Dawlish Warren to Newton Abbot wasn't too busy and was on time as was the train from Newton Abbot to Plymouth. All in all it had been a good day out, the Scaup sighting brings my 2024 year list up to 195 and the rain finally arrived as I stepped off the train on my return to Plymouth!
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