I headed out for a bit of local birding a couple of times on Saturday 24/09. I started out by meeting up with Gareth mid-morning for a stomp around Grimsbury Res and the Upper Cherwell valley. We failed to find anything particularly spectacular but a few nice odds & sods consisting of a 2cy Yellow-Legged Gull, a foraging Willow Tit, a Wigeon, 2 Common Sand and a small movement of Mipits & Swallows.
I went a longer way home than usual to check a few farmland sites and came across a large flock of around 200 Lesser Black Backed Gulls near Thenford. It was pleasing to find a further 3 Yellow-Legged Gulls here with an adult, a 2cy (possibly the same individual from Grimsbury?) & a 3cy. Grotty phone-scoped photo of the 3cy below...
Later on, I met up with both Gareth & Dan for a crack at the Boddington gull roost. Before I went away to Cornwall it was appearing quite productive and I was keen to give it another go. It proved to be well worth while, with a juvenile/1st winter Caspian Gull present almost immediately and was there pretty much the whole evening. iphone-scope photos below.
Also present were two juv/1st-winter (one of them below) & 1 adult Yellow-Legged Gulls, as well as a Little Egret (far from a common sight here). A couple of Yellow Wagtail also flew south calling. It was then time for a pint!
Last week, I had a really nice break in Devon & Cornwall with Em for a few days. There was, of course a bit of birding thrown in too! We headed down on Saturday 17/09 and spent quite a bit of the afternoon at Topsham near Exeter. Em went for a look around the shops there, while I spent my time at Bowling Green Marsh and the Exe estuary...win win! The weather was stunning and there were plenty of birds to sift through, so a nice start to my time away. The marsh mainly held wildfowl, with lots of Wigeon, Teal and at least 20 Pintail. Most of the waders were out on the estuary, with it being low tide, so I headed to the Exe/Clyst watchpoint.
The highlight from here was the sight of two Osprey showing over the estuary for some time, one of which flew down the river with a pretty hefty fish. There was also a pretty decent selection of waders including a Whimbrel, a couple of juvenile Knot, plenty of Black Tailed Godwit, 10+ Greenshank and a few Grey Plovers, together with several more common species. Also here was the frankly bizarre and amusing sight of a Grey Squirrel scurrying across the estuary mud and actually swimming the 30 or so feet of the River Clyst channel! A hilarious sight as this bedraggled little critter then stumbled away!
That evening we had the unfortunate situation of a tyre blow-out whilst on the way to our accommodation. Thankfully, it didn't affect the holiday and we just had to drive around on the Sunday, using the spare. So, on Sunday 18/09, we left our accommodation on the edge of Dartmoor and up to north Cornwall. Tintagel was to be the first destination, via a visit to the nearby Davidstow Airfield, a real autumnal hotspot for rare American waders. This year was no exception with both Buff Breasted Sandpiper and American Golden Plover present in recent days. Buff-Breasted Sand was a bird I was really keen to see and AGP is my no.1 bogey bird. Therefore a visit to Davidstow was a bit of a must! Being a Sunday, the site was unfortunately highly disturbed with people flying microlights, drones and toy planes. Therefore, both a drive and walk about produced neither of my target birds. A juvenile Grey Plover was the only bird of note, initially mooted as a possible juvenile American Goldie by a local birder. The views of it were not the best, looking into the sun and the bird being at some distance. But allas, it was simply a juv Grey Plover.
We went on to have a nice walk around the ultra touristy Tintagel and the spectacular Castle location, which was really cool. Before we headed on west to Falmouth (where we were due to stay the night), I persuaded Em for a second crack at Davidstow, having seen a report of the BBS at the west end of the airfield. Being only 5 minutes out of our way it was well worth another cheeky look!
We were soon back at a certainly quieter Davistow Airfield and I began slowly driving along the runways. Approaching the western end, I caught sight of a few birds moving around on some short grass closeby. I quickly stopped and raisied the bins and was greeted with a lovely juvenile Buff-Breasted Sandpiper accompanied by 6 juvenile Ringed Plover, milling around. What a welcome sight!!
For the next half an hour or so, I enjoyed some frankly amazing views of the bird, allowing me to manoeuvre the car at will, to get the best light angle as it busily fed by the side of the runway. At one point it ventured within just 15 feet of the car and then just sat completely at ease and had a preen for a few minutes. As lifers go, this one didn't get much better. A truly memorable bird!
Having made it to our accommodation in Falmouth all ok, the next morning (Monday 19/09) was all about getting the tyre fixed up. Thankfully, Falmouth Tyres were super helpful and we were all sorted by quarter to 10. We intended to head a little further on into Cornwall and have an explore of a few places including the impressive-looking St. Michael's Mount. Unfortunately, the cloud originally forecast, had now turned into torrential rain, but despite the conditions, we stopped off en route at Perranuthnoe close to Marazion so I could have a look at the very long-staying Hudsonian Whimbrel. Despite my best efforts, I missed out on the one in Sussex back in 2015 and so this would be a very welcome bird indeed. I donned the waterproof and headed down the short footpath to Boat Cove.
I was amazed how easy it was to find the bird! I reached the point where the path joined the coastal footpath and peered over the edge of the sandy cliff. There below me was the Hudsonian Whimbrel feeding with around 10 Bar Tailed Godwit and a few Turnstones...brilliant!
It went on to show really well, obligingly doing a couple flights, showing off that dark rump. It was also very vocal. The rain was relentless for sometime, but eventually eased to allow Em & I to enjoy the rest of our day visiting a few places in west Cornwall.
After staying in Mevagissey in south Cornwall overnight, we headed back further east to Plymouth where we spent much of Tuesday 20/09 enjoying a bit of nostalgia, visiting some old uni haunts. There was also plenty of time to take the short boat journey across Plymouth sound to Mount Batten, to enjoy a bit of a treat...the recently discovered adult Lesser Grey Shrike. It didn't disappoint, initially showing incredibly well by the mount batten car park, before becoming more elusive. But what a beaut! My third lifer of the trip too :)
On Wednesday 21/09, among other places, we visited Start Point in South Devon. The views here are stunning and it's a great place to visit, despite the long, narrow country lanes that lead to it! I had a bit of a short scan of the sea here, late in the afternoon, producing a Sooty Shearwater west, a Common Scoter east and plenty of Gannets. A Wheatear showed briefly here too.
My last bit of birding was on our last morning (Thursday 22/09), again popping into Bowling Green Marsh, near Exeter. It was high tide and so the marsh was jam packed with a huge amount of birds. This included 1 juv Curlew Sand, 3 Whimbrel, at least 4 Med Gulls, 10+ Greenshank, c.20 Barwits and the largest number of Curlew I've seen in a long time!
That concluded a lovely bit of time away, that included some very memorable birds!
Saturday (09/09) was a bit of a washout and with my cricket game cancelled by early afternoon, I was free for a bit of birding. Gareth B suggested we go and have a look at the juvenile Baird's Sandpiper discovered the previous evening at Upton Warren flashes near Bromsgrove. I didn't need any second invitation and 50 minutes later we were on our way there. I hadn't realised quite how close Upton Warren was to us, being only 36 miles away. Therefore, twitching the bird hadn't really been on my radar. So I'm glad Gareth suggested it! John, one of the warden's was very welcoming on arrival as we coughed up our £3 admission fee. After a short,10 minute walk, we arrived at the hide. In no time we were both enjoying good scope views of our first Baird's Sandpiper. Excellent stuff! At this point it was too far for any photos, however thanks to a band of relentless, local Jackdaws, the bird was chased away from the back edge of the pool to an area far closer to the hide.
The bird was a really crisp-looking juvenile, with lovely scaly upperparts, while the structure was very striking, with the long wings protruding some way past the tail, similar in that respect to White-Rumped Sand.
Other birds noted during our visit included a Hobby (seen by Gareth), a Ruff, 3 Avocet & 2 Common Sands. After an hour or so, we departed for home, extremely satisfied with our visit!
I've rather neglected the blog recently so here's a bit of a round-up for August. Most of my birding time has been spent paying regular visits to Grimsbury Res, close to where I work. It's been enjoyable getting fully back into the swing of patching. August is generally the best time for gulls at the res and this year has seen a decent run of Yellow-Legged Gulls of varying ages, interspersed with the odd Med Gull, including a ringed adult on 10/08. Unfortunately the ring was a small metal one that I just couldn't read.
Passerine highlights have included a lovely Tree Pipit, grounded on the 25/08 and multiples of Redstart, Whinchat & Wheatear.
Other highlights have included a juvenile Black Tern (the 3rd year running I've seen the species here), a lingering juvenile Ringed Plover and two lovely juvenile Black Tailed Godwit on the evening of 08/08.
Away from Grimbo, I have paid a couple of visits to Otmoor for the now long-staying Purple Heron, a long-staying juvenile and a lifer for me. Gareth and I managed views on the gloomy evening of Monday 08/08, while Dan and I also gained brief but rather distant views on Sunday 14/08. Both times, not even a hope in hells chance of getting a photo! The 14/08 also produced a few other birds of note at Otmoor, including distant views of the two GCP Cranes, Redstart, 2 Whinchat, 6 Mandarins, views of a juvenile Water Rail & an obliging Common Lizard.
Summer Leys was somewhere I hadn't visited for a while so I popped in on Sunday 21/08, after visiting my parents near Northampton. Bird-wise, there was nothing spectacular about, although I did enjoy watching a couple of Hobby hunting in tandem to try and catch a Sand Martin. Despite failing, it was fascinating behaviour to watch. Green & Common Sands were present, however by far the highlight of my visit was a monsterous Privet Hawkmoth caterpillar trundling across the path near to the screen hide. An amazing looking beast!
Dan Watson & I had planned a day out on bank holiday Monday (29/08), kind of hoping the weather would provide us with some good migrant conditions on the east coast. With a westerly wind and bright sunshine, it's fair to say conditions were far from ideal! All the same we thought we give south Lincolnshire a bit of a go with at least the draw of plenty of waders at Frampton Marsh. On a stunning day we started off early and headed straight for Gibraltar Point, a new site for me, but one Dan was pretty familiar with. Although the site held few migrants, it was impressive in terms of the amount of good habitat, with some good areas for waders, plenty of scrub, dunes etc. Surely an exciting place to be during an easterly gale in October!
A good wander around the site produced a couple of Spoonbill on the scrape areas, a Whinchat, a Wheatear, tonnes of Sandwich Tern on the beach, a Spotted Redshank & Green Sandpiper, a couple of Marsh Harrier (including one in off the sea, over from Norfolk?), Lesser Whitethroat,a strong passage of Swallows south & several Yellow Wagtail.
We then made our way through the 'delightful' Skeggy and back south to finish our afternoon at the RSPB's Frampton Marsh, a cracking site for waders, particularly recently, with peak numbers of over 200 Curlew Sandpiper...proper mental!!
Curlew Sandpiper numbers today, while not anywhere near the 200, still built up to a hugely impressive 60+, far outnumbering anything I've seen before. Our afternoon was spent enjoying these, with numbers peaking at high-tide, at around 16:30pm.
Best of the rest were around 8 Little Stint, c.100 Ringed Plover (I counted 99, but I'm sure I must've missed 1 or 2!), Greenshank, juv LRP & decent numbers of Ruff & Black Tailed Godwits. That concluded a decent enough day out with nothing stupendous but cool to try a couple of new sites and also to take a break from the attrition of midlands birding!
