Ringing With a Twist

First port of call early this morning was Seaton Marshes, where we were going to be trying to catch and ring some ducks with the Abberton Traps. I say trying because as often as not we arrive, sit in the hide watching the ducks ignoring our bait for an hour or two and then go home. This morning we really needed to catch something though because a film crew were coming from the BBC, hoping to film duck ringing in progress for the program 'Inside Out'. They would also be filming at Black Hole Marsh, and taking a tram journey too. I hadn't any idea of which program was being filmed until I was there and the presenter arrived. It was Chris Packham!! (I think I may have uttered my trademark squeal, Steve!) He must be, without doubt, my favourite wildlife TV presenter. I was a HUGE fan of 'The Really Wild Show' back in the 1980s, (which is rather worrying considering that it was being aired when I was at University!). Chris was very friendly and a real pleasure to meet, as were the rest of the team. I'll tell you about the morning's events in my usual way via loads of photos:

The Shelduck tease us by swimming around just outside the trap, flying off for a few minutes only to come back and mill around again,. If we waited long enough at least one was bound to be daft enough to take the plunge.

We began to worry that we wouldn't catch any Shelduck. So Neil and Steve set to work on plan B - 'Operation Blue Tit!' We actually caught a nice male Reed Bunting in this net. It was our first bird to be ringed this year.

The Reed Bunting didn't get to be a TV star though because finally a couple of Shelduck obliged.

These two were both retraps, as are most of the Shelduck we catch. They still needed to be weighed and measured though, so TV stardom is on the horizon for one of them.

The 'small but perfectly formed' film crew arrive on the scene. The Shelduck aren't very impressed so far, you can guess where they are!




Discussing the plan of action

One female Shelduck gets in the limelight at last.

After the filming was complete the film crew kindly agreed to a group photo or two, here are two of them. They are much the same but I'm in one, (Fraser taking photo) and Fraser's in the other (me taking photo) and I don't want to leave him out, do I?. Although Steve was present earlier in the morning, he had to leave early and missed the photos again!

Left to Right: (Sorry don't know a couple of names) Catherine, cameraman, producer, Chris,
Neil, Mike, Ann, Fraser/myself and Graham.

The crew moved on from here to the Tramway and Ann, Catherine and myself went along too because they needed extra bodies to act as birdwatchers on the tram. We had an interesting time and had great views of Black Hole Marsh, (which has now been re-flooded), from on board.

Apart from the three of us and the film crew, the rest of the 'birdwatchers' were tramway staff, including a couple of the drivers. It was mighty cold!

Black Hole Marsh re-flooded and looking great.

We had been told to meet the film crew at the tram depot, but we later found out that they were actually leaving from the Station in Seaton. We had to get on the tram at the depot, which meant walking through the tram sheds themselves, a rare treat for a tram enthusiast I shouldn't wonder! Shame I'm not one, but in case any are reading my blog. "Hey, cop a load of this!!"

Oooh! Trams

And more trams. A sneaky view of the seldom seen inside of the tram sheds. To most 'Backwater Birders' the words Tram Sheds only conjure up visions of a handy reference point for locating rare/scarce waders/gulls!

A Very Jammy Patch Yeartick

I've had little time today for any birding but I did manage to see a couple of notable birds non the less. Latish on in the afternoon I took Rex for a walk along the beach where I spotted another Little Gull feeding VERY close in, along the line of the breakers in fact. I had my trusty point and shoot with me so tried to get a few photos. The bird was usually too close, making it too fast to follow with the camera but I managed a couple of OK shots. I could see some very dark and menacing clouds out on the horizon and sure enough it soon began to sleet quite heavily. I decided to drive up to Coronation Corner, wait for it to stop and see what, if anything, it brings in. When I got there it was quite busy, Steve was looking through the gulls, along with two visiting birders (I think), well I didn't recognise them through the downpour. Ian M was also there sheltering in his car. The sleet turned into heavy snow and they all eventually left. It wasn't looking like stopping any time soon so I left as well, after all I could hear a nice cup of tea calling! However, I was just passing the gates to the yacht club when the snow did indeed abate a little, I was tempted to go back to the beach to see if the Little Gull was still there, because I'd enjoyed watching it so much. Just as I reached the car park and wound down the window I noticed a flock of ducks flying east, very close in, they almost flew over the car park before heading back out to sea. They looked interesting (i.e. not Mallard or Wigeon) so I quickly got my bins on them and they were interesting too, a patch yeartick no less! Pintails! FIFTEEN of them (including at least four drakes). Quite exciting really because I've only ever seen singles on patch before.They'd obviously been blown off their usual 'avoid Seaton Bay like the plague' flightpath by the approaching storm I had passed Steve by the bridge on my way home and knew he needed Pintail for his yearlist, he was near enough to see them I thought and I was just trying to phone him when the snow suddenly turned into a blizzard. The ducks simply vanished into the resulting whiteout!! I texted him instead. He never replied, so I guess he may have been a bit gripped, Ooops sorry :(

Here are some photos:

It was right in over the breakers....

... Flying to quickly for my camera to cope.

A bit better.

A very threatening sky, it was, as my old Nan used to say "as black as Bewdley Hole." Whatever that was!! The Little Gull is just visible right in the centre. Honest!

Whiteout at Cori Corner

The snow was so thick it obscured the sun partially, making for an atmospheric scene. Can you believe ten minutes later the sky was blue again!

PS: In case your wondering, guinea pig alive and well, update to follow shortly.

An Unusual Find and An Obliging Iceland Gull.

At lunchtime I took Rex for a walk along part of the River Coly in the Heathayne area of Colyton, it was really cold and I was having a thoroughly miserable time. That was until I noticed a lovely flock of Siskins in a large riverside alder tree. It was a BIG flock too, I estimated around 200 birds! They took my mind off the cold for a while anyway. :-) It was far too gloomy to digiscope or zoom in on them for a photo but I took one showing a few of them in the branches, I think there are about eighty in this shot, the tree was literally 'dripping' with them.


On the way home from Colyton I was driving down Cownhayne Lane when I spotted something very unusual. There's no way I would have spotted it if I wasn't a birder, because as usual I was naughtily paying a bit too much attention to the hedges and fields and not enough to the road. I'm glad this was the case though because this is what I spotted, I noticed the black and white and at first I thought it was going to be a Magpie, wrong! It was.....

...A Guinea Pig!!!

Poor soul! It was no weather for a guinea pig to be outside fending for itself. It was right next to a lay-by, but absolutely nowhere near any houses, which led me to the sad conclusion that it had been dumped here! I was thinking it surely couldn't have survived out last night, and it definitely wouldn't survive tonight's sub-zero temperatures. I decided to try and catch it but I knew it would be a little tricky to say the least. It immediately ran off underneath a thick hedge from where I attempted to extricate it, with little success. With hands scratched to bits by brambles and muddier than a wallowing hippo I decided it was going to be a two man job. I rushed home to get Martha and after another few minutes of scrauming around in the mud and a couple of strategic pokes with a stick (humanely of course!) it was rescued! :-)

One VERY lucky Guinea Pig!
Hope it survives the night (it was pretty traumatized and a bit thin) :(

Because I was keen to get it back home into the warm I drove down the side of the estuary without looking at the gulls for the first time all week, almost missing the patch's fourth Iceland Gull! Fortunately Nick was looking at the gulls and shortly after I arrived home I got his text saying he had an Iceland Gull near the bridge. That's only a couple of hundred yards away from my house so I got in the car! It would have been almost as quick to have walked, it's just habit I guess. I really liked this gull as it did the decent thing and hung around for all to digiscope at will. Like this: