March Doldrums

Mid-march is here and it's that weird time when winter birds depart and summer birds are yet to arrive and things are expectantly stagnant. 

Sunday 7th March and a morning walk around Plmouth Hoe before the crowds arrived was Purple Sandpiper-less but the female Long-tailed Duck was still present in The Cattewater, distant and active as usual.

Thursday 11th March and another Plymouth Hoe walk was Long-tailed Duck-less in choppy seas but the Purple Sandpiper showed well along with 6 Turnstones at Rusty Anchor.

Purple Sandpiper

Friday 12th March was showery and breezy but despite the low tide I headed out to Saltram and the River Plym for a walk. It was a very low tide but out on the water and mudflats of the Plym I found an unringed adult winter plumaged Mediterranean Gull amongst the Herring, Black-headed and Great Black-backed Gulls present along with a notable increase in Common and Lesser Black-backed Gulls. A Greenshank, a redhead Goosander, a Curlew and a few Redshank were also seen.

The female Red-crested Pochard was back on the duck pond along with 22 Mandarin Duck (12 males, 10 females) and assorted Feral Ducks and Moorhens.

Red-crested Pochard

Mandarin Duck

The usual birds were seen in Saltram Park  - Stock Dove, Goldcrest, Great-spotted Woodpecker, Mistle Thrush, Greenfinch, Nuthatch, Kestrel, Peregrine, Ring-necked Parakeet and Pheasant the best - but the highlight was a Reed Bunting found and pointed out to me by local birders Pete and Ian and only my second Plymouth sighting of one. 

It was good to see the pair of Stonechat again and showing very well by the main footpath heading down from the house to the beach. The female was absent during the very cold spell we had recently so it was good to see her back with the male, presuming it is indeed the same female. 

Stonechat - male

Stonechat - female

Sunday 14th March was Mothers Day and with it being a dry and mostly sunny day I decided to avoid the crowds and potter about the house doing chores with just a short trip out to Sainsburys to break the day up.  However on returning home from shopping I checked out the sightings pages to see a report of a Sandwich Tern in The Cattewater and so after quickly eating my lunch I headed down to Duttons Cafe on The Hoe for a look. Needless to say there was no sign of it but the female Long-tailed Duck was still present, distant and mobile and rarely at the surface for very long as usual.

Spring is beginning to arrive! 

Grey Days

Thursday 4th March was a grey and claggy day with hardly any breeze and as we needed to revisit Tesco at Roborough we decided to visit nearby Roborough Down for a walk beforehand.

The walk along the Leat was enjoyable and interesting as always and as we chatted away putting the world to rights we saw songflighting Skylarks and Greenfinchs, at least 3 male Yellowhammer half heartedly singing and Stonechats perched up on the gorse.

Yellowhammer - a dash of colour on a dull day

With spring beginnig to appear on the horizon my Amaryllis bulbs are starting to bloom as the days get longer, I now have 12 bulbs in total of which 4 are now in flower and looking very colourful and beautiful. 

Amaryllis Flowers

With the Glaucous Gull still being reported around The Mewstone at Wembury I decided to have another look for it on Friday 5th March. It was another grey day, cool in a strong north-easterly breeze but at least it was dry and the footpath wasn't quite as muddy as on my previous visits.

I easily found the Glaucous Gull roosting out on The Mewstone, it's all white plumage was glowing in the gloom like a beacon. It eventually took off and flew towards me, flying past me along the cliffs at The Point before settling on the sea. A small fishing boat then sailed past attracting gulls in its wake and the Glaucous Gull went to join them before returning back to The Mewstone. It was the same bird that I saw on February 23rd with primary feathers noticeably missing on both wing tips when in flight.

Glaucous Gull roosting on The Mewstone

Glaucous Gull on the sea

It was a 6 Gull species day in total - an adult Lesser Black-backed Gull was roosting with Herring Gulls in the horse field above the stables, a winter plumaged Black-headed Gull flew past east, a 1st winter Mediterranean Gull was seen feeding on the sea near the sewage pipe and Great Black-backed Gulls were noted including 2 adults feeding on the decomposing corpse of a small cetacean along the beach.

Mediterranean Gull

Mediterranean Gull

Great Black-backed Gulls

Dead Cetacean (Harbour Porpoise?) along the beach

A very confiding female type Black Redstart was a nice find feeding on the seaweed mass along the beach with a Meadow Pipit, Rock Pipits and Pied Wagtails.

Black Redstart 

Black Redstart 

Black Redstart 

Black Redstart 

Other birds of note were a Bar-tailed Godwit and 4 Curlew roosting with 25+Oystercatcher on the rocks at The Point, Gannets offshore moving east, Fulmars around The Mewstone, a male Kestrel and 2 Buzzards over, a male Stonechat along the beach, 2 Ravens over, a female Pheasant in the valley to the beach and songflighting Greenfinch.

Grey (and great) days out but there certainly is a sense of spring in the air, I wish it would hurry up and get here!