Autumn Afternoon

An Autumn Sunday afternoon by the Dart with the Folks and Sister the YoungerYounger was very pleasant, though with two Whisthounds it wasn't always peaceful.!

Though with chews of distraction employed, coffee and barmbrack went down well, and a couple of Dippers and a Goosander showed nicely, too.

As we were climbing back up from our spot, 2 late Swallows went over at treetop height; it's not quite Winter yet!

[Though with the drop in temperature today, you do wonder...]

At Home, it was 2 for 1 on Nuthatches on my feeders on Monday afternoon, with 3 Great, 3 Blue, 2 Coal Tits, 2 Dunnocks, a Robin working on getting at the newly re-positioned sunflower and pellets feeder [moved to foil Woodpigs and Magpies] while still trying to beat up the Great Tits.! [This was simultaneously; busy busy!]

Eyeing the forecast with interest..

Be Seeing You...

Halleluia. Sort of.

Dragged myself up and out and had a go at getting a better view and maybeevenyouneverknow a photo of the Pallid Harrier.

I failed.

I did succeed in getting a very nice view and even some grainy photos of the male Hen Harrier that's been knocking about the area, from The Pulpit [which is a stone circle, as religion in Devon goes back a Long Time]. Thus the title.

Amused, aren't you?

A flock of 11 Redwing were going to be the next best thing, but a Dipper gave me a flyby as I loitered about Cadover in vain hope of a last minute Pallid perforfmance.

I'd not been up Trowlesworthy Tors in many many years, so that was nice, too.

And nothing fell off the car this time, which was a bonus.

Be Seeing You...

Three Up North

After a slight delay due to technical issues [when bits fall off, you need to get them put back... Ahem] I was able to go filthy twitchin' up North.

Sandymere at Northam Burrows is basically a big puddle between a car park and a shingle bank. Not exactly the sort of place you'd expect to find waders, what with all the dogs running around.

But this is perhaps what's so appealing to the White-rumped Sandpiper that's settled there. Being a yank, it's pretty bomb-proof and just flies over to the other side when someone gets too close. More regular waders wouldn't tolerate anything mammalian within 30m at absolute least. So the WRS has the place and all the food - and there clearly is a lot it's finding - to itself.

This also means you can, with very little patience, get very close views indeed.

A  far better state of affairs than my last and only other in Devon, my view of which was largely a white arse flying off never to be seen again!

Ah, if you could see my pics. But gaggle still suck, so. ::shrugs::

Go look at various sightings sites, or twitter feeds.

I allowed myself a celebratory fried egg sarnie* at the caff [nice but pricey], tried a quick seawatch [epic fail], then headed over to Fremington, to seek out the first Slav Grebe in the county this year [what is going on?!?]

I had to toddle upstream a way and troll out over the sands [with care, I've seen SLAS], but it was there and lovely. The Glossy Isbis was visible on my way out along the Pill, so I stopped and zapped it immediately, as while I didn't need it for the year [remember? I got very soggy and cold and also a Green-winged Teal], there are principles.

Rewinding, and during my trip up the A361 - after I got off the duke but before I got to the Temporal Distortions Of Dooooom - I was very creditably able to keep driving in a nice straight line when a Short-eared Owl went overhead!

 

I'd been considering trying for one in the various places in t'North you can sometimes find them, if time permitted, but this was quite convenient.

Not very convenient, as then I would have been able to crash stop and get a picture or two for Over There, but you takes what the Goddess of Birding gives in Her wisdom.

So, three in a day and I've broken 230.

Result.

Be Seeing You...

[[* Not just a yeartick, but actual unequivocal photos, too!]]

Flurry of Goodies

Still place-keeping for now.

Normally October is the month for rares, but it seems the shift to November [and the clocks going back to where they should be] has had an effect.

It got to be a 'which do you try for?' yesterday, but with a Devon Tick versus a bird highly likely [as I thought] to get flushed off by hordes of dogs, that was also half the distance away, it really wasn't such a trial.

Unlike trying to get to and then find the darned thing.

A similar story on Friday with the Rosey Starling - allegedly at Whitford, certainly in a vast mass of regular-flavour Starlings roosting at Colyford Common/the Black Hole - where I could have just sat down and waited.. Ah well. Exercise is good for you, and all birding is worthwhile.

Reader, on my way back, having given up that the Pallid Harrier was anything other than a fly-through, and walking a different way back out of bloody-minded propriety, I flushed it. Got a lovely if very brief view of that spectacular arse [look at the photos; orange and white and dark and woooo] as it zipped off over the brow of Ringmoor Down [that's where it was all day; asleep in the long grass on a lee slope.].

Photo? I barely had time to get to get bins on it and start swearing.

Of interest,

The White-rumped Sand is still showing today, I understand. Despite being on a pool that is literally next to the car park with nothing to keep anyone off it.   Go figure.

Friday.  If I get my car fixed in time [Oh yes and that's another story]

Be Seeing You...

Note

I like Snow Buntings.

That's it.

Be Seeing You...

Insert Something Witty Here

I'd like to be able to put some lovely pictures of birds like Ring Ouzels, Whooper Swans, and so on, but that would involve a) actually having them and b) gaggle giving up.

Oh well.

I'm considering just going back to the Olden Dayes and being text only, with a few pics for those brave or foolhardy enough to go on twitter and find my presence there [though I'm almost as bad at posting as I am on here, dearie me]

Anyways, I've been out twitching winter swans and hunting down winter thrushes, and have even found my first lithic of the year [woo]

Also a few waxcaps, which were far more amenable to being photo'd.

Anyways,

I shall

Be Seeing You...

Happy October

 

Marked the start of the month with some filthy pre-work twitching of a gorgeous Black-winged Stilt on Exminster Marsh.

The Goddess of Birding rewarded my dedication with a surprise Pectoral Sandpiper; doubly surprising in that it even showed a couple of times.!!

 

 

Google still suck harder than a double-vortex vacuum cleaner.

 

 

Another wandering wader has turned up, but will I get to it, too?

 

We shall have to see.

 

 

 

Be Seeing You...

'Don't be evil'?  'Don't be greedy'.