A report of a 'probable Black Brant' off Preston on a Certain Devon Birding Site had me wandering down that way today. Not a Brent of any flavour to be found anywhere from the Harbour to the Pier, of course, but one has to try..
There was a very nice Red-necked Grebe off Hollicombe, at least 3 Black-necked Grebes, a couple of GC, the male Common Scoter, and the female Long-tailed Duck. Ah, the L-T Duck.... She'd evidently taken a whack to the noggin and come to thinking she was a porn star. So ridiculously close in off Preston Sands, and so unbothered by passing dog walkers that I was able to go right out to the water's edge [this being low tide] and get crippling views as she dived, sat, preened and flapped her wings at me, the hussy. ;) Close enough to fully ID without optics. Mad, mad I tell you... Two of the BN Grebes got in on the action and started swimming by in front of her 'Hey, look at us!'. All this in balmy sunshine.
Did I mention the Med Gull? Not last week's stunning adult, but a 3w [aged as such by tiniest traces of dark subterminally on primaries combined with otherwise adult features {esp. bill}]. This one was so white it almost looked like an Iceland Gull, I've never seen a w/pl Med with so little black on the head before; really pretty bird. Also at Preston, it came in from the outer rocks as the tide started to rise [I'd spent a while cooing over the Long-tail] and sat nicely with the BHGs. The adult intermedius LBB was at Torre Abbey on the way down [mantle a shade off GBB and easy to mistake for a skinny one - it's a big bird] and 24 Turnstones enlivened the trip up [much easier to count with less exposed rock to scan]. Again no sign of a Blackstart, though. This afternoon there were 168 GC Grebes off Blackball, plus 4 Razorbill, in pretty good conditions for viewing.
Yesterday I gave the Patch a good bash, noting 2-300 Guillemots around and on the Ore Stone [need the Bigs Scope to count them properly] and finally getting something on the Firecrest I've been playing les buggeres risibles with since last year! :D If you're feeling very lucky, or just very masochistic, you start at the small grove of pines just down the road from the gate to Hope's Nose. If it's not calling around there, follow the coast path loop to Thatcher Point and back to the road. If you've still not connected it's either on the cliffside where you can't get at it, or in the garden of someone with LOTS of money - where you can't get at it. Fun for all the family, I tell you. [[Or, you could just go to Broadsands, or Beer Cemetery, or Thurlestone, or...]]. Ahem. Silliness aside, I've had half a dozen or so 'Was that a Firecrest?' moments there since the cold snap, but at last enough [nice clear calls and a brief glimpse] to Patch yeartick the little git. Why is it only the ones on my Patch that are so naughty? Other Firecrests in Devon have been very nice, and two at Loe Pool a couple of years back were positively tarty...
{I would have been blogging this last night, btw, but a surprise piece of Civic Duty popped up and afterwards I was far too drained. [[Did you know every Council ward has a Community Partnership? Do you know what they do / can do? I didn't until very recently. I won't bore you with details, suffice to say they're worth looking at.]]}
I had been intending to go on about seawatching, in an attempt to get this blog back to it's 'a little less reporting and a bit more wibbling' original intent. So that's two more good intentions on the scrapheap. There is still time, of course, and there's always tomorrow [[and tomorrow and tomorrow and..]] [[Ahem.]]. One final thing - passing the Harbour this morning there were exactly 7 Herring Gulls. Weather and tide... Plenty around the outfalls at Torre Abbey and Livermead, plus Hollicombe, Preston, Corbyn's etc. Closest things to an interesting one were a 4w(?) Herring with almost entirely black bill, 'Slaty-backed' head streaking and only a few teeny brown marks on the tail away from full adult plumage [[Weird]] and a 2w Herring with what looked like GBB genes... a lanky scary headed gull!
PYL: 87
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