Backwater Birding - Seaton, Devon (10 Viewers)

[Simon Wakely]

Evening all,

Lastest Report since Sunday:
• All our usual Woodland birds on show. I.e Green woods, Great Spots, Jays, Nuthatch, plenty of Willow Warblers around, Honey Buzzard seen for the 12th time, a family of newly fledged Green Finches was a suprise last night - a picture below of one of the juvenile enjoying the sun.

Tonights Report:
• Four Ravens over.
• The main highlight, the call of two patch special birds flying, hopefully, our way. We sat in antisipation finally to see them flying over. We took a picture with a hand held digital camera and prayed it was ok! You'll have to ID them for yourselves as we can't do everything for you!!

Hoping fellow patch birders will enjoy the pictures and we'd like a patch tick!
We find birding a very enjoyable hobby.

Happy Birding.
Sue and Simon:t:

 

[Steve Waite]

Thought I'd test my long distant digi-scoping skills, so I went the whole hog by trying my kit out at a range of about 238,855 miles.......(second photo taken with scope zoomed up to 60X!).

No decent birds seen from work today - but still two highlights:

1 - a Jersey Tiger Moth fluttering about over the wine section!!!
2 - a big green bug clinging on to a bunch of bananas which had been boxed and sealed in Brazil!!!!! A first for Seaton - possibly even for Devon!!!

 

[Steve Waite]

Thought I'd start my days birding with a walk along the beach - I stayed here for nearly two hours!!! Main reason was because of the waders - 20 Ringed Plover (including one obvious tundrae - with possibly a couple more less obvious ones), 16+ Dunlin and 3 Curlew Sands; 2 juv's were sat on the beach in with the Ringo's and Dunlin, and the third came flying past calling with a single Dunlin and went straight out to sea - not returning!

Not just waders though - at 08:20 the Gulls went mad, and soon enough Karen shouted 'here it is!' - Osprey low over Spot On Kiosk which promptly headed off low north over town (would have gone straight over Co-op!). Also 3 Yellow Wags over and a Wheatear.

Attached are my best efforts - a little more sun would have been welcome!

 

[KarenWoolley]

I visited Colyford Common first thing, no waders, just lots and lots of water in the scrape. I too figured the waders may be on the beach, and sure enough when I arrived Steve was already watching them. The Osprey was a terrific bonus and it will probably be back later (flying low over the co-op at 2-ish is my predication ).

All I can add to Steve's figures are two more Wheatears on the Yacht Club car park.

I also took some photos and they are as follows:

1) Curlew Sandpiper taken with S3.
2) digiscoped shot
3) same, but only one I got showing bill!!
4) Birds being flushed (both curlew sands in this I think)
5) Birds flying off (you can see the curlew sands white rump in this one).

 

[Roger Boswell]

They were all still on Monmouth beach this morning.

4 Ringed Plovers
12 or more Dunlins
1 Turnstone
and a large number of Rock Pipits and Grey Wagtails

Unlike Colyton you can get REALLY near to them. Just sit on the beach in front of the boat park and wait for them to wander past. An incomming tide pushed them even nearer - but they then tended to run past faster!

 

[KarenWoolley]

I think this pic (somewhere) shows your tundrae Ringed Plover Steve??

 

[Steve Waite]

I think this pic (somewhere) shows your tundrae Ringed Plover Steve??

Yeah that may be it third from right on back row - looks smaller and darker, quite brown though, the one I had was very dull. Love the flock in flight Karen.

 

[andrew grinter]

Correct on all your IDs, Roger - the Dunlin photo is nice, with a few winter feathers coming through.

Had a Swift and a flyover Yellow Wag whilst at work today. Otherwise, birding limited to a late evening jaunt to Colyford Common, where Clive had found 3 Curlew Sandpipers. Only two were still in view when I arrived - a juv and a lovely moulting adult. A nice selection of regular waders too, and apparently a Wood Sand still, though not for me. Big tide this evening, and the scrape was flooding rapidly....

3 Curlew Sands were showing from 1800 at least.They weren't there when I arrived about 1730.Sent Phil a text, but didn't realise I still had his old mobile number.Wood Sand about the same time.However all the birds were flighty and regularly changing especially the Green and Common Sands.
Also at least 6 Yellow Wags with the cattle viewed from the platform.

Glad Clive turned up to alert you all.Got Phil's 'new' number now so hopefully I can get any message out should I find anything else.It's about time I paid you guys back a bit with some news.

Andy

 

[KarenWoolley]

Took the dog for his walk up on Axe Cliff today at around lunchtime. I decided to have a look over the cliff edge into the undercliff, near to where Steve looked yesterday. I was not however, quite so adventurous as to climb down!! I found a nice grassy area on the cliff edge to sit and view from. There were plenty Willow Warblers and Chiffchaffs in the bushes and a couple of Whitethroats. This gave me an opportunity to practice taking snaps of warblers flitting through the undergrowth, ready for our next Melodious or first Greenish!! Got a few half-decent shots. Attached one.

A quick visit to Brucklands didn't produce any good birds today but I got some great views of Migrant Hawkers, and a couple of snaps, a male in flight and a pair.

 

[Simon Wakely]

Evening all,

A good evening it was indeed! The most Swallows we have ever seen circling around the fields in a feeding frenzy. Hopefully this breeding season was still ok.

There was a Green Woodpecker hiding itself in in our apple tree.

As hopefully, you are aware, we have reported a male pied flycatcher in our garden on approx 4 occations so we thought the two pictures below would probably substanciate they are breeding on our patch.

Happy Birding
Simon and Sue:t:

 

[bun]

Did a fairly quickish look around Beer Head this morning ( trying for a repeat of the same day last year, when steve nearly retired from birding... , quite a few Hurindines on the move, 8 Wheatear, 14 Yellow wags, 5 stonechat, 1 whinchat, and 1 Hobby also a large finch flock 150+ mostly Linnets and Goldfinches, settling on the hedge on the left of the farm by the water trough ( shouldve took my scope this morning to so i could of grilled them!!) then went to work and got the customary phone call of ' Did you get that Osprey?? - met by the obligiatory answer of ...' Nope i missed that one!!........:-O

 

[Steve Waite]

3 Curlew Sands were showing from 1800 at least

Nice find Andy - our first of the autumn! Report of four there tonight - 3 juvs and 1 ad. Glad our patch has produced some goods for you.

Bun that smiley surely should be a crying one....

 

[Roger Boswell]

Last posting from Monmouth beach - unless something else turns up, but I had to go and try my S3 with Olympus 1.7TC. It was quite a dismal morning but the waders were still foraging on the shoreline.

I was really quite surprised by the results I got - I am much more confident of taking this camera on hikes when I might just come across a 'different' bird.

The electronic V/F is horrible, especially for anything that moves, and the Ringed Plovers can move very quickly! When looking at a full sized image you can see blocks of pixels and purple/green fringing can be quite a problem on high contrast edges. However, for such a portable camera at about a quarter of the cost of my 350/Sigma outfit the results are amazing.

This morning the camera was set on P mode with sensitivity set to 80ASA, giving exposures between 1/320 and 1/160 (the Plover) at f3.5. All images were hand held at the max tele x 1.7 setting.

 

[Simon Wakely]

Evening,

Sue opened the back door and was this Oak Eggar (we think). A first for us - probably not rare but we have never noticed one before. Picture below.

The garden this evening was unusually quiet, just the normal woodland birds. Our 13th spot of a Honey Buzzard - flew over and we watched it land in a distant tree. It was 8pm and quiet dark, however, we managed to get a picture of it but only a siluette due to the light, but still delighted. It was facing us preening.

Happy Birding
Sue and Simon:t:

 

[Steve Waite]

Beach first thing this morning - 15 Ringed Plover, 15 Dunlin and 2 Common Sands. Then went to Colyford Marsh - both Wood Sands still present and a Greenshank. Had to work at one, but in my lunch hour I sat at the farm gate where I finally saw the adult Curlew Sand (the nice blotchy red one!) alongside a juv in amongst a flock of 25+ Dunlin and Ringed Plover.

Two additions for yesterday -

2 Whimbrel on the estuary and another Co-op tick in the form of a Ringed Plover over!!!

 

[Steve Waite]

A look along the river this morning - 4 Wigeon about the only notable sighting. Then went along the beach and was treated to the three Curlew Sands.....I started snapping away and am rather pleased (to say the least) with the results!!!! Also 20 Dunlin, 15+ Ringed Plover, a nice drake Common Scoter offshore and a few Yellow Wags over.

 

[Steve Waite]

And check out those feathers on the adults back...... (plus one more juv photo!)

 

[Gavin Haig]

Crackin' snaps! :t:

 

[Roger Boswell]

It was such a nice morning that I made another visit to Monmouth beach where Bob Hastie was already photographing the waders on the shoreline. Sunshine made the birds look even more impressive.

Dogs kept the birds moving so I tried a flight shot - only one didn't resemble a formation of flying buns.

Returning up the Lim I came across a Dipper. Much more timid than the Ringed Plovers, flying upstream if you got within 20yards. Further on I came across another on a stone in the only shaft of sunlight. Despite a very careful approach I was only able to get a distant shot.

 

[bob hastie]

Excellent shots Steve, great detail.
Roger, thanks again for the info. I wish the couple of flight shots I took were this good.