A Great Day Out at Slimbridge

With a week of annual leave and no real plans we decided to pay my sister and brother-in-law a visit in Bristol via a trip to Slimbridge on February 12th.

We left Plymouth later than planned and got caught up in a few traffic snarls along the way but we arrived at Slimbridge just before midday on a mild and mostly sunny day before David carried on to nearby Gloucester for a look around antique shops while I enjoyed some Slimbridge birding.

I started off in the Martin Smith hide where a Jack snipe has occasionally been showing well for a while now and sure enough it was there but all I could see of it was a brown and cream blob hunkered down in the green grass. Fortunately other birds were showing very well - Bewick's swans, white-fronted geese, 2 buzarrds, golden plover, lapwing, black-tailed godwit, ruff, dunlin, redshank, curlew, wigeon, teal, shoveler, shelduck, pintail, greylag geese, mallard and tufted duck with 2 common cranes seen flying over.

Jack Snipe

Wigeon

I carried on along the path towards the Holden Tower, visiting the Robbie Garnett hide and Stephen Kirk hide along the way where I managed to get much better views of the Bewick's swans, white-fronted geese and ruff out on the flooded Tack Piece field.

Bewick's Swans with Pintail and Wigeon

Bewick's Swan with Teal

Ruff with Lapwing

Pintail

There were 6 juvenile Bewick's swans amongst the adults and there was much calling and displaying going in the mild and sunny conditions as the birds begin to prepare for their migration back to Siberia.

From the Holden Tower in a surprisingly strong and biting wind there were 7 common cranes feeding out on the saltmarsh including 1 juvenile bird along with Canada and barnacle geese. A few skylark were also noted along with 2 oystercatcher and a pair of peregrines buzzing around and perching on fence posts or mounds of vegetation on the ground.

Barnacle Geese

I moved to the side of the hide overlooking the Tack Piece where I was sheltered from the worst of the wind and watched 1 of the peregrines cause complete chaos amongst the waders as it unsuccessfully chased a golden plover before moving on. A lone fieldfare feeding close to the hide was a surprise and I picked up a small flock of linnet feeding in the grass but they were too distant and flighty and mobile to pick out a twite amongst them which has been seen here recently.

Fieldfare

The lapwing, dunlin and golden plover on the Tack Piece continued to be nervous and flighty and I picked up a small falcon flying high overhead before landing in the top of a tree - a female merlin, my first sighting of one at Slimbridge. It sat in the tree top scanning around before launching into flight and dropping down low to the ground in a fast flapping flight interspersed with wings tucked in, putting up the waders, linnets, starlings and skylarks feeding out amongst the grass as it rocketed across the field. Unfortunately I lost track of it amongst the melee and I never refound it and despite the distant views it was a nice surprise to see.

Back to the Martin Smith hide where the Jack snipe was still mostly hidden amongst the grass although 5 common snipe were much more showy. The Jack snipe would occassionally wake up and show its head and bill very well before doing a few bounces and settling back down to sleep with its bill tucked under its wings. Eventually it was spooked by a moorhen passing by and it moved off amongst the grass bobbing away before it was totally lost from view - not quite the views I had hoped for but nice to see none the less.

The peregrines continued to buzz over the Tack Piece putting up the feeding birds although they didn't appear to catch anything but it was time to move on to the Rushy Pen for the feeding session with the WWT warden. I had planned to visit the In-Focus shop overlooking the Rushy Pen to have a look at the telescopes but it had closed by the time I got there so I enjoyed watching the birds on the Rushy Pen instead, watching the Bewick's swans flying in to feed on the grain including a second winter bird still  unusually showing patches of pink on its yellow and black bill.

Pintail

Bewick's Swans

Bewick's Swans 

Bewick's Swans 

Bewick's Swans 

Bewick's Swan with Mallard

David duly arrived to pick me up and we drove back to Bristol to spend the night at my sister Vik's and brother-in-law Nik's and the next morning at breakfast it was fun to watch the antics of 2 very chunky looking grey squirrels stuffing their faces on my sisters bird feeders along with nuthatch, robin, great spotted woodpecker, coal, blue, great and long-tailed tits, blackbird and magpie.

After spending the morning in Clifton admiring the suspension bridge across the Avon Gorge while visiting the nearby observatory with its camera obscura it was time to drive back to Plymouth but it had been a very enjoyable trip away - Slimbridge is always a great days birding and it was lovely to catch up with Vik and Nik.

Dawlish Warren, Saturday December 23rd 2017

With a wildlife feeding frenzy having occured off Dawlish Warren on Friday 22nd December while I was having a particularly shite day at work I decided I needed some recovery time and so headed out to have a look around the next day. I felt knackered and cranky and it was dark and murky and mizzly on leaving the house but the train journey went smoothly and by the time I arrived at The Warren it was clear and dry but cloudy.

I walked over to the sea wall for a scan to be met with a sea full of birds - great northern divers, razorbills, great crested grebes, red throated divers, shags, gannets and gulls everywhere! The birds were mobile and active, diving and flying around and resting on the sea and difficult to count but there must have been 300+ gannets and 90+ great crested grebes present and I counted 7 red throated divers together with more also being present.

Onwards to The Bight and along the way a male cirl bunting was singing in a tree and a pair of bullfinch were feeding in the bushes, the male looking particularly stunning in the bright sunshine which had burst out from behind the clouds and raised the temperature to a very spring like level.

Male Cirl Bunting

In The Bight the usual birds were roosting at high tide - redshank, curlew, oystercatcher, dunlin, turnstone, knot, grey plover, bar tailed godwit, wigeon, shelduck, brent goose, cormorant and gulls - while offshore at the estuary mouth were 3 great northern divers busily diving and bringing crabs up to the surface to munch on.

Brent Geese on The Golf Course

Back towards the main pond and a birding group had found a firecrest in the bushes which gave some brief views before flying off out of sight and on the main pond a pair of mallard, a pair of shoveler, a little grebe and a moorhen were found along with a Jack snipe in the same spot I saw one back in March this year, presumably the same returning bird and still extremely difficult to find amongst the reeds and easily overlooked.

Male Shoveler

 Dawlish Warren - Main Pond

 Jack Snipe in the Reeds

Jack Snipe - Zoomed In

Back to the sea wall and the birds had moved further out offshore but there was still plenty of birds to see including guillemots and a distant dark skua species which barrelled into a group of feeding gannets and which I annoyingly lost sight of as I switched from binoculars to telescope (both Arctic and pomarine were reported that morning). Common dolphins were also seen, a little distant but showing well at the surface as they slowly moved south, and I also had 2 brief views of a harbour porpoise.

Onwards to Dawlish along the coast path and while waiting for the train I scanned the sea from the railway platform and had some close and good views of both great northern- and red throated divers along with a few kittiwakes. More common dolphins were also seen, some quite close to the beach and all swimming around quite languidly.

The train journey home wasn't so great with delays and cancelled trains and I ended up waiting at Newton Abbot station for an hour and a half, if I had known I would have stayed longer at Dawlish but never mind, it had still been a lovely day out.

More Local Birding - Water Pipit and Jack Snipe

Saturday March 25th and a beautiful sunny day at last saw me heading off to Wembury for a walk but there was a strong and cold easterly wind which hampered things a little. However it felt very spring like and I managed to collect a good range of wildlife sightings.

A pug moth was found in the toilet block, I caught it in a pot and tried to get a photo before releasing it, however I had forgotten how neurotic and skittish pug moths are and it flew off before I could get a decent snap.

Pug Moth Sp.

More cooperative was a speckled wood sunning itself in a sheltered spot out of the wind and I also managed to see a holly blue which flew past without stopping and a total of 4 peacock.

 Speckled Wood

Speckled Wood

Chiffchaffs were singing away with a few seen and I heard a male cirl bunting and had a brief view of a female. On the rocks were 2 little egrets, a grey heron, 11 oystercatcher and 3 male and a female mallard and a lone adult gannet was seen offshore. A raven had a bathe in a rock pool before having a preen on the clifftops and I heard and then saw a red legged partridge in the field above the horse field in the same spot I saw them a few weeks ago.

Red Legged Partridge

There was no sign of any wheatears but the highlight was a very handsome looking water pipit in summer plumage feeding on the beach with rock pipits and meadow pipits and pied wagtails. I have only seen a summer plumaged water pipit once before, many years ago and a very brief view as it flew off so it was very nice to get some very good views of a very attractive bird. I assume it is the regular wintering bird having moulted into summer plumage before migrating back to its breeding grounds but it was quite wary, not helped by regular disturbance by walkers along the beach, and was also regularly chased off by pied wagtails and rock pipits nearby, quite unlike the behaviour from the wintering bird.

 Water Pipit

 Water Pipit

 Water Pipit

Water Pipit

Sunday March 26th was another beautiful sunny day but again with the keen and cool wind and so I decided to finish my week off as I started it with a trip to the River Exe, this time catching the train to Dawlish and walking to Dawlish Warren for a look around. At Dawlish a grey wagtail was feeding along the stream leading down to the beach with the 3 adult black swans and the lone small cygnet feeding nearby.

Grey Wagtail, Dawlish

The sea was very choppy and rough but I managed to find 2 great crested grebe, a female common scoter and a pair of red breasted merganser offshore along with the usual shag, cormorant, herring gull and great black backed gull.

I arrived at the main pond to find a pair of birders scanning the reeds only to be informed that my target bird, a Jack snipe that has been present by the upturned boats and showing well for a few days now, had moved off and out of sight just a short while before. I decided to wander off to view the area by the upturned boats from a different position and found the bird hidden amongst the reeds and surprisingly difficult to pick out against the vegetation. I popped back to the 2 birders to let them know where it was before returning to my original spot and managed to get some fairly decent views although the bird mostly slept with its head tucked under its wing. Occasionally it would wake up and preen before returning to sleep but when it was awake it constantly bobbed up and down in a most peculiar fashion, a bit like a wagtail constantly tail wagging I suppose. It was nice to see a Jack snipe on the deck, I have only ever seen them in flight, and its short bill and dumpy profile reminded me of a miniature woodcock - cue some more awful record shot photos. 

 Jack Snipe - in the reeds to the right of the blue boat

Jack Snipe

  Jack Snipe

 Jack Snipe

 Jack Snipe

Jack Snipe

Jack Snipe

While watching the Jack snipe I also saw a male reed bunting, a female cirl bunting, a little grebe, a pair of mallard, 2 moorhen and singing chiffchaffs and a decent view of a water rail feeding along the reed edge before it realised it was being watched and disappeared into the reeds.

Water Rail - record shot

A walk around the Greenland Lake area gave a very nice view of a hunting male sparrowhawk looking gorgeous in the bright light. However I was less enamoured with it when I watched it chasing after a small bird which I initially thought was a bullfinch due to catching a flash of a white rump. A better view of the bird and I realised it was in fact a wheatear, my first of the year - luckily it escaped and flew off high to the north and I guess the sparrowhawk was just doing what sparrowhawks do.

 Male Sparrowhawk

 Male Sparrowhawk

Male Sparrowhawk

There were quite a few sand crocus flowering in the sunshine, such tiny flowers and so easily overlooked.

 Sand Crocus

 Sand Crocus

Sand Crocus

A speckled wood and a peacock were also seen but there was no sign of any commas reported yesterday.

Speckled Wood

A very nice day out and the end of another nice week off work with some interesting sightings and all within Devon and Cornwall.

Plymouth Birding Day

Sunday 22nd January and I had planned to visit Dawlish Warren on the train but a lack of sleep after my night shift and a thick head from a night out with friends from work on the Saturday evening meant I ended up having a lie in and a days birding around Plymouth instead.

I headed off to the River Plym and Saltram on a bright and cold day but the tide was high and so the highlights along the river were 6 turnstone roosting on the water ski pontoon by the recycling centre and around 100 dunlin roosting on the foreshore below Blagdons boatyard.

I managed to find 4 snipe and a Jack snipe, the views of the Jack snipe were not as good as those before Christmas though - it flushed at the last minute and flew off silently and low over the ground before disappearing behind some small trees but its small size was instantly noticeable after having already seen the snipe to compare with it.

I had a look for treecreepers in the woodland but with no luck, my eyes were just too tired, but I did find a nuthatch and 2 goldcrest amongst the usual woodland birds, while out in the grassy fields I found 2 mistle thrush, redwings and Canada geese but there was no sign of the cattle egrets.

Best bird though was a woodcock which flew amongst the trees while I was searching for treecreepers, I think it had been flushed from the woodland floor by dogs - it flew over my head and through the trees before flying off along the woodland edge by the grassy field and out of sight. Very nice to see, my first sighting of one in Plymouth.

I headed off back home on the bus before walking over to Ford Park Cemetery for a look around. Two female blackcaps feeding on ivy berries with blackbirds were a nice find and I easily found 2 ring necked parakeets feeding on the bird feeders while a third bird called nearby, they were quite tame as they munched away on peanuts.

Ring Necked Parakeet

Ring Necked Parakeet

Ring Necked (or Rose Ringed) Parakeet

Ring Necked Parakeet

I wandered around amongst the tombstones and I eventually found a male black redstart which gave some great views, a very smart looking bird, and a nice end to a Plymouth birding day.

Black Redstart

Black Redstart

Black Redstart

Black Redstart

Black Redstart