Hit and miss

A good-sized high tide at a civilised hour had me over to Bowling Green this morning, in the hope that a) the moulting Spotshank was still about, and b) that it would deign to show itself this time!

I got a shock - no-one in the hide! High tide, weekend, plenty of waders - not a soul... Plenty of... enthusiastic birdwatchers arrived [I tried very hard not to mutter about zombies - see Owen Foley's 'Cork Dude-ing' blog for a very very funny explanation], and a couple of birders later on, but by then most of the waders had been flushed. This was bad, and not just because everything got flushed.

The Commandos were engaged in target practice - which is fine and good - but some [Long chain of Ancient Devonian Swear-Words excised] seemingly took this as an excuse to start up with a shotgun >:( Wildfowlers shoot over the Clyst, but only at first light, not 11-00!!! Then the Flying Squad did their usual 'rules don't apply to us' routine of flying right over far too low...

Hmmm, I seem to have sidetracked myself.

Ok, it was a sunny morning with very little wind, and Bowling Green had a lot of birds on it. Big group of mostly immature Black-heads, and two good sized groups of waders. Couple of Pintail were nice, 4 Wigeon, and 9 Little Egrets looking very snazzy in their s/pl. 4 Common Gull were lying about on the grass, and later on 2 Oystercatchers were a fairly unusual sight this far up-river. The waders were a good 600 Blackwit [including one poor thing with a broken leg...], at least 150 Curlew, plus low-mid tens of Redshank, Barwit, Dunlin and Knot. A single Whimbrel paraded around on the grass and there looked like more with the Curlew, but I didn't get around to checking thoroughly. What looked like a Ruff stuck it's head up from the right side waders once, but again I didn't get to stake it out and confirm it.

The Spotshank was indeed present at the left of the far side group - looking very odd as it moults belly-up! It took an hour, however, for it to come out from behind the Blackwit it was hiding behind and prove it wasn't the 'dark Redshank in strong shade' that also fitted what little of it could be seen! Also on the far side [with the bulk of the waders] was the Big Miss of the day - a stint sp.!!! I got two sub-5 second views at about 10-30, which told me there was a very active wader, markedly smaller than a Dunlin [it ran right past one], on the mud. The backlight was enough that I couldn't even get leg colour... I figured I'd have a good hunt after I pinned the Spotshank down [seeing a summery Spotshank being the point of the exercise, after all]. Having finally gotten the Spottie, I was unable to re-find the stint before everything was put up. A fair few Blackwits and the Whimbrel stayed, but everything else went, and a check of the Clyst showed they'd gone a long way...

Bugger.

I very nearly tried Exminster, but realising that everyone, their dog, their kids, their Aunty Doris, and their visiting relations from Outer Mongolia were out, [meaning full car parks, and very very scarce birds] I decided to head home. Course, turns out there were a couple of Ruff at Exminster, including a s/pl male... Birding, eh?

Still, high tide tomorrow I reckon there's a chance someone might get lucky at Bowling Green. I would quite likely be there myself, but I fear a certain warbler over in cornwall may have prior claim.....