Ticking Waders

Ah, back to the fun and games! After a week spent trapped at work, with [Hobbies aside] Woodpigs, Crows, and Herring Gulls [plus the odd Blue Tit or Greenfinch] to look at, it was back to the fray! I'm still quite fired up, can you tell?

Ahem.

I dragged up at early as I could bring myself to and managed to start watching at Hope's Nose at a meagre 0740. When I got up, it looked pretty promising, with murk and wind, but by the time I arrived the wind had blown the murk away and it was threatening sunshine as I sat down. I shook my finger at the sky in a 'Don't you dare...' kinda way, and it seemed to work, as clouds and even some drizzly gunky showers turned up. Four and a half hours later* I had seen a fair mix of birds, though it was pretty quiet for stretches of time, and passage was never smooth.

[[*I have a good excuse for stopping early; it's all [Famous Devon Birder]'s fault!]]

337 Gannets [about 150 of those between 0830 and 0900], 177 Kittiwakes [all after 1000] and 70 Common Scoter [including one indecisive flock of 33 who went south, north, and then finally south for good...] were the big numbers.

Star bird was one you'll never guess - go on, have a think while I go through the rest...

Skuas; 1 Pom, 2 Bonxie, 4 Arctic

Shears; 1 Sooty, 2 Balearic, 12 Manx, 1 large shearwater sp. [looked pretty good for a Cory's, but didn't quite feel right, so just a 'sp.']

Terns; 2 Black, 3 Arctic, 7 Common

Auks; 7 Guillemot, 8 Razorbill, 2 Auk sp.

Waders; 2 Dunlin, 1 Curlew, 2 Turnstone [good for HN]

and... 14 Fulmar, 4 Lesser Black-backed Gulls

plus.. at least one Wheatear around the Nose

Star Bird and a Patch Tick was seen flying south while watching the Black Terns - a Lapwing! Never seen one of them on a seawatch before....

[Famous Devon Birder] arrived for an hour or so, managed to see a group of shears I missed completely, then as he was leaving found a Wryneck! I got flashbacks to another seawatch a few years ago when JR refound the last HN Wryneck and had that nasty accident as he was rushing back to tell me... Fortunately no injuries this time, except to my pride and reputation [[Yeah yeah, "What reputation?!?!!??" I hear you cry...]] as I was utterly unable to get eyes on it. I suspect it may well be the bird I saw a week ago - not far away [that Wryneck had most likely been driven from the Nose by the hordes then present] and also a complete git to see....

Having cut off my seawatch to go Wryneck hunting [the fact that passage had died and the sun was coming out was an entire coincidence] I decided to head for Dawlish Warren and see if I could redress the Prawle Fiasco and get Buff-breasted Sandpiper on my Devon List at last.

This was a Very Good Idea, as the bird was a legend; Showing Well was an understatement. Showing Down to 20', my dear readers! Ye Gods what a confiding bird. Proper yankee wader behaviour, this. It just merrily kept on wandering and feeding in the Bight, ignoring the assembled birders and only flushing a little way when the golfers sliced their shots onto the mud... This is what birding's really all about, moments like this. Not good for a blogger to admit, but words fail me as to how much I enjoyed watching it.

PYL: 80%