Proper Birding

Saturday saw me doing some proper birding!

I didn't even look to see if anything was about, I tooled up and went over to Dawlish Warren for a day of looking for my own birds [ahem..].

The sea was, er, quiet. There were a couple of Gannets.

I bashed all the bushes and trees, hoping for some migrants - not something I've done a huge amount of in the past [until last winter I had bins whose 'close' focus was not much under 20', so close encounters with things that go 'tac' didn't end well...]. There were a couple of Blackcaps, some Willow Warblers, a few Chiffs, lots of ickle baby Blue Tits [awww...] but nothing spectacular. I did see a nice odonate - a male Migrant hawker, no less - so definitely a successful exercise! :)

Another look at the sea gave some distant tern spp in the murk...

The estuary was another matter. It seems these low high tides [while rubbish for Bowling Green] are pretty good at the Warren [if you have a Big Scope, at least]. The big roosts of Oiks and Geebs were nearly matched by Dunlin and Ringos in their hundreds [[see the DW website for official scores]] with a fair few Sanderling mixed in, plus Curlew, Red and Greenshanks, at least 4 Whimbrel, and a dozen godwits [mostly Bar]. Star turn came from a Little Stint, which showed extremely well, out in the open being Stint-y [instead of scurrying behind everything at Bowling Green] and beating up Sanderlings!

There were also no less than 7 Curlew Sands [and another Little Stint], but these were only visible if you left the hide and wandered back to the Bight Edge [[this is not due to an utter lack of ability, I'll have you know, as a Certain Devon Birder Who Shall Remain Nameless also suffered the same phenomenon... ;) ]].

A Wryneck Hunt was undertaken by 4 brave souls, and while no Wryneck was forthcoming it was a lot of fun!

My total of 56 species is not very impressive, but I had a very enjoyable day.

Sunday saw me up and out in the rain, giving Joe "The name's Hungover, Oh Shite I'm Hungover" Ray a lift down to darkest cornwall. A lot of birds had turned up - Ortolan Buntings, Citrine Wagtail, Wrynecks, Barred Warbler, Icterine Warbler and so on... between us that was a lot of Life / Year ticks.

I don't know what you saw on the weather, but ye gods it rained - all the way there, all the time there, and a lot of the way back. Sometimes hard, some times light, but ever present. Despite this, after finding somewhere to put the car we found the site of the group of Ortolans and the Citrine Wag. Expecting hours of staring at a big field, waiting for a bird to land on a wire, we were very happy to behold Ortolans which hadn't read the script. There were lots of them and they kept sitting on the roof of some rich git's holiday home! Those sub-moustachial stripes really showed up when the birds were head-on, especially on the more strongly streaked juveniles, as did the edging to the tertials from behind. Gorgeous!

A bit of patience and persistence then led to cripplingly close views of the 1w Citrine at the nearby ex-farm - well worth the soggification we underwent. I have previously said that I'd be happy never to see another of those little gits, after the run-around I got last year, but I think I've changed my mind now.

Also Wheatears, Tripits, a Whitethroat, and White, Yellow and Pied Wags present, plus the interesting sight of an Ortolan, a White Wag, and a Chiff side by side on a roof. There's one I didn't see coming...

With the weather clearly set for the day down there, plans for Icterine, Wryneck, possible Barred and the [as it turns out totally] elusive Short-toed Lark were scrapped, [as the birds were likely cowering under the biggest bushes they could find] in favour of a long burn all the way to the Axe so that Joe "School Tomorrow, so no Brown Fly for me... :'(" Ray could try to de-tart his list and actually see a Dotterel! Would only be a yeartick [[Chorus: "Not that you're yearlisting!"]] for me, but they're lovely birds and it's always nice to go to the Backwater.

After some very poor directions [exacerbated by scrambled pager messages] led to yomping all the way up past the golf club to Axe Cliff and back down again [feel free to try it with full kit some time - if you get to the top your heart is very healthy indeed!] we eventually [thanks to Bun and his Super Scooter] found the bird, and had all of 5 minutes enjoying it getting ever closer and closer, before it was flushed by a dog walker......

A detour to The Black Hole on the way home gave 2 Little Stint, a Curlew Sand, a Common Sand, a Greenshank, and a few Dunlin and Ringos. Construction of the Mighty Hide of Seeing All Round [we hope] continues apace - I look forward to it's completion!

So, after a long but successful day, we both had very nice Lifers, Joe had lots of yearticks, and I'd made peace with Citrine Wags [we'd fallen out over the despicable behaviour of the Marazion bird - tarting for all and sundry, then making me dip twice before only giving me a fly-over, the little bounder! ;) ].