I've Been At It Again!

At precisely 8:00 am this morning Bun was doing a very good job of reading my mind and a text duely arrived, it said something like " if your tempted to twitch the Penduline Tit, give me a shout" I was VERY tempted and an hour and a half later we were on our way. There had been no news of the bird which was last seen yesterday at 'Clennon Valley Lakes' (teeny-weeny ponds more like) in Paington. When we arrived we could immediately see cameras and scopes in action and so knew the bird was still there. I lifted my bins casually and amazingly it was there in them straight away! What a grand little chap he was, I went all 'weak at the knees' and was allegedly heard to rashly utter the words "best bird ever" (these are words I'll probably be uttering a few times next week when in Norfolk with Steve and Bun, my first birding trip there) possibly true, but if not, he's definitely there in the top ten. Steve asked me this evening to qualify my remark, it's difficult but it was possibly a combination of the muted and subtle but at the same time bold colouring, combined with the acrobatics and generally un-skulking demeanor. Well, let's just say he had a 'certain something' if you know what I mean. Anyway here he is, a bit blurrier than in reality of course.

Due to it's constant acrobatics most of my pictures looked like this.


Here's one the right way up.

'Best bird ever'? Defimitly a contender :-)

Edit: Almost forgot. A very short video clip too.

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On patch today all I've done is have a q1uick look up the estuary from the house this afternoon, notable birds were the Spoonbill still ( I wonder if it's our longest stayer yet?) and the drake Tufted Duck

A Bit of a Spoonful

I didn't think I'd get any birding at all done today, because by the time the fog was clearing it was time for me to head off to Axminster and the dentists. By the time I'd done some shopping and stuff it was getting really murky and starting to rain again, so I headed home. I had to pull over at Coronation Corner to answer a phone call and spotted a lovely adult Mediterranean Gull on the near bank, I just had to take a snap of it, didn't I!?

This adult appeared too have a ring on the right leg, I couldn't make out any details though.

Further down river the Spoonbill was fishing. I stopped to watch and after a few minutes it caught a flatfish of some description and made a prolonged and determined attempt to swallow it. I had to admire it's tenacity. I took a couple of snaps but they're a bit grainy as it was raining.

You can see it's going to be difficult to swallow.

It's lined up, but it just wont go down.

Here's a couple of videos of the struggle, only about a minute each. It actually carried on trying for at least fifteen minutes before dropping the fish back in the river, much to the disgust of the waiting Gulls, Egrets and Crows, all of whom had made a previous attempt at snatching it.

A Luxury Cruise!

First thing yesterday morning I managed to get Spoonbill on my house list, (this would have been easy to do on Sunday afternoon when it was standing around in the river for hours but I never thought to look at it from the house at the time) I could see a large white blob alone on a saltmarsh island just opposite Coronation Corner. I couldn't tick it because it could have been a Swan or a group of Little Egrets or indeed a fertilizer sack (it was about a kilometre away). Fortunately, as I was struggling to decide which of these it was, it took off with about a dozen teal (well, tiny ducks) and circled around for a bit. I could see that it had landed along with some large gulls to the north of Seaton Marshes somewhere, that somewhere was Black Hole Marsh I learned from Gav's text later in the morning. I believe it was back on the river in the afternoon but I didn't see it because I was on a luxury cruise on the River Exe. Actually it was a bird watching trip and I'd kindly been invited along by Ian Waite, who was doing the expert commentary, and a fine job he did too. I certainly couldn't keep talking for that long!

The trip lasted for three hours and went from Exmouth Docks to Topsham and back, we didn't see anything particularly rare but had some greet views of large numbers of waders and waterfowl, some of which are quite scarce back here on the River Axe, like Grey Plover, Bar-tailed Godwit, Knot, Avocet, Sanderling, Brent Goose and Red-breasted Merganser. The weather conditions were at best atrocious, with high winds and persistent rain but I thoroughly enjoyed it especially with the help of some superb chicken and leek soup, hot sweet coffee and the regulation chocolate buttons (the weather conditions called for the giant variety). I was hoping to get some nice photos but it wasn't going to be easy in the wind and rain, I've never had to wipe my bins and camera lenses so often- ever! Most birds were moving too as was the boat obviously, so maximum naffness guaranteed!!

Here's a summery of the trip in photos, some much worse than others.

Some people were really enjoying the first strong winds for weeks.This looks easy, doesn't it?

....not as easy as kite surfing though. One of these guys came right alongside the boat at an incredible speed...

... and here he is, look it's a cinch!

Here's a murky photo showing the Dawlish Warren reserve, you can just see the two tier hide in the distance to the left of that pole/mast thingy.

And now some stunning bird photos:

Ooh Brents! How exciting! There were hundreds of these....

... and these, in fact Avocet was what the majority of the punters on the boat had come especially to see, so they went away happy despite the weather.

There were a few Blackwits...as my stunning flight shots show.

My personal highlight was getting nice close views of Red-breasted Mergansers, my closest for seventeen years! They are always pretty distant off Seaton and usually just fly pasts.

We often got a lot closer than this ....


... but the result was always this. Great close flight views though!

Finally a couple of pics of the boat, the first one taken on the way out showing Ian in the centre with bins up and the hardiest of the passengers facing the elements on the top deck. Would they last the distance though?

Still keen despite the weather.

But not that keen! The same top deck with half an hour of the return trip left, The rain was now lashing down and only Ian and 'Seaton's hardest seawatcher' remained.