The Cliché Strikes Again

It's one of the famous birding clichés; a group of birders are waiting somewhere, be it on a twitch, seawatching, or just sitting in a hide, and as soon as one of them leaves, something good appears. Its especially strong if that poor someone wants to see said something good, most of all if they've said they do out loud.

Thus it was today at Bowling Green, when [Devon Birder] was hoping for a nice Yellow Wag, but left bird-less. Within 5 minutes a gorgeous one was tarting about by the depth gauge - albeit briefly, as it was flushed by Canadas, themselves disturbed by a coobeastie!

I went over this morning for the high tide [arriving in time, this go around...] and was rewarded with a whole heap of birds. Ok, so most were Canadas and BHGs, but there were a fair few waders too, and some were very nice. Avocets, for example; 2 early birds [pun intended] which had only arrived this morning. 3 juvenile Ruff showed very well [when it wasn't too badly affected by the sunshine], as did - oh sod it, here's the list;

Knot 14 [one still in very smart s/pl]

Dunlin 16

Green Sand 1 [plus 2 unseen]

Greenshank 19

Redshank ~100

Blackwit* ~240

Barwit 8

Lapwing 14

Curlew ~410

Whimbrel 1+ [Not specifically looked-for, this one stuck its head up while I was counting the Curlew]

Ringed Plover 3

L Egret 35

G Heron 1

BHG 600+

Med. Gull 1 [juv.]

[[*One Blackwit had a colour ring; yellow over red flag, but it was standing on one leg and side-on, so which leg they were on was impossible to determine. When the Blackwits flushed it vanished and wasn't refound while I was there]]

The thistles in front of the hide were taking a battering from a large party of Goldfinch, mostly juveniles. More than a dozen Pied Wagtails, plus a couple of Greys and at least one Yellow were mobile among the grass, cattle, and waterside, while overhead a good-sized group of mixed hirundines were active. A very smart Chiff came close to the window while working through a neighbouring tree, giving a lovely if brief view. Speaking of, so did the Red Arrows, as they came over from Dawlish way [though I thought the display was supposed to be yesterday?]. Eventually, a big blue tractor came to cut the rushes, and that was pretty much that.

This afternoon, brief drama as a female Common Hawker buzzed into the garden, had a look at the pond, then flew straight into the conservatory window! She made one hell of a thwack, but flew off apparently undamaged - I suppose dragonflies are pretty tough, judging by the violence of the clashes I've witnessed in the past [[Southern Hawker vs Emperor at Smallhangar springs to mind...]. Garden tick, but a pity she didn't hang around to oviposit - the pond leeches could do with thinning out...

Once Moor

I'd like to apologise for that horrific excuse for a pun, really I would...

A belated Sunday post here, with no further apologies as you're doubtless used to my erratic timing by now. ;)

With the forecast for moderate west or nor'westerlies, with overcast and maybe a bit of sunshine, the Folks and I went up on't Moor to do a walk they'd done a few years back; following the Avon up to Broad Falls, then cutting behind Huntingdon Warren to Snowdon and back down the ridge to the dam. A shower en route was not in the forecast, but when we arrived at Shipley Bridge the sun was back out, and the Avon valley was its usual hot sultry self.

Golden-ringed and Common Hawker Dragonflies [no damsels, though - though we didn't hang around, as there were miles to go and so on] buzzed around the boggy bits [which still look very interesting, if ever I get around to looking at them properly]. Grey Wagtails and a juvenile female Sprawk being harassed by a Crow were the best birds before we started climbing out past the dam and met a group of mixed thrushes and Chaffinches munching the berries [looks like a lot of Rowan again]. The reservoir itself had nary a Mallard, let alone anything interesting, and as we thankfully diverged ways from a large horde of Happy Hikers, a big black cloud brooding over the tops to our north sent a couple turning back [well, we didn't actually ask them if they'd been scared off by the weather, but their body language suggested it..]

Personally, I was rather enheartened by this, as I'm not a fan of the heat and bright sun [I'll put up with it for odonata], and more rain means fewer emmets. The Folks are of the other persuasion, but to their credit, even when it started drizzling on us they just 'proofed up and kept going. Tilly, well she had seen sheep and was... keen for more...

Bird of the day was a gorgeous Wheatear, which popped up onto a wall at close range, looking all fresh and pretty. Less good was the amount of water up there. It's a rare sight to see the Avon Falls [when the reservoir is full and pouring over the top of the dam] in summer, and upstream all the boggy bits were very wet, all the streams were pretty full, and the going was 'interesting'. Also, with the Avon valley being much rougher going then even a couple of years ago, it was decided at the Mythical Avon Clapper Bridge to change the plan. Over the river we went, up the hill, and over to the tramways. Time had moved on in that way it does and lunch was needed, but the wind was fairly keen and getting some shelter from it a good idea. But where? This is one of the Great Arts of enjoying t' Moor; finding good spots to stop! With Tilbury Dog along, this is made even more complex, as she will a) bark at any livestock in sight [and I do mean any, up to tiny dots miles away if they move] and b) bark at any passers by in case they try to steal 'her' [ie. our] lunch - though she will now stop that when told to. She's an interesting little dog..

Finding shelter from the wind on a gently curving hillside when it's blowing upslope into the tin workings is not simple, but fortunately, t' Moor's industrial heritage [as they like to say] has left a few other nice bits of scenery. Some people don't like the various stone ruins, but I think they're great. Not only of archaeological interest but also wonderful windbreaks. Alas, the coobeasties think so too, and they really churn the ground to mud - which, while I don't mind muddy boots, would also lead to muddy dog, and as these were old china clay buildings... Yeah, not good. However, a leetle lateral thinking and a solution was found; next door were a couple of settling tanks, now dry and with a useful rim. Just sitting on the edge took the main force off the wind, sitting inside took all of it off, though at a cost of the panorama. Tilly had nothing to tangle herself around and no view to bark at, so she could concentrate on her 'Poor Starving Animal' routine. Result.

The tramway leads back to Shipley [well, one branch does, the other goes to Ivybridge - pick the right one or be sorry!], but matters were complicated by the herds of coobeasties and their calves. Some cattle are pretty laid back, and will just stare at madly barking dogs, but some aren't [even those without calves, as we found at Sourton...] and with a dog we can't let off the lead it can get dodgy. [[The rules are pretty simple; stick together, look big, and never ever run]]. Eventually after several detours we had no choice but to go straight through a big herd, but they were nice coobeasties, and while a few of the younger bullocks had a trot, they mostly just got up and watched Tilly being dogmarched past.

We went on past the Sub to Black Tor, where we had coffee in the sun and out of the wind. A couple of different distant dark brown soaring raptors eventually resolved into Buzzards [quelle surpris], and it was nice in a relaxed way.

Musician's Recompense

All the fun comes with a price, of course. Alas I can't just spend my days swanning around looking at birds [or staring at bushes, as we shall see later...], more's the pity. So, a week of work, more work, did I mention work? Oh and with a bit of overtime thrown in for good measure. Joy. Not even a work tick, either. Yep, you read right, overtime. ::Sigh:: It's all that pesky front's fault - if it hadn't sped up and gone through overnight... Tut. But petrol doesn't come cheap [despite crude falling 20%; scum-sucking profiteers that they are] and overtime helps to pay for all the fun.

As does Being Good and bashing my Patch yesterday. Strictly Longshank's Pony only as I gave it a fair going-over, with a juvenile Willow Warbler the highlight - passing through almost definitely [alas again] as I haven't had more than briefly singing spring migrants here for a long while. When I were a lad, they'd sing from just up there ::Points::, but no more...

Juvenile Whitethroat was more likely a local, but the interesting skulker with white tail sides at the Nose... It popped up and back down very quickly, but what little I saw and heard of it was promising. So, I picked a good spot - close but not too close, nicely tucked away and so on - and waited. And waited. How long do you stay staring at a bush [or vast area of scrub, in this case, as the little git was in the top end of the South Side]? I gave it an hour.

This is why I prefer seawatching to pass-bashing - they fly by, maybe they hide behind a wave, but you know within at the most a few minutes if you're going to get an ID. There's no malarky with hiding in bushes and sneaking out the back while you stand around like a plank... There's no giving a call that sounds like 20 other species' calls. Or giving a funny call then moving somewhere else, or.. ah, you get the idea.

Not to say I haven't had fun with little birds in big bushes - but usually when I already know they're there. A certain Sardinian Warbler at Berry Head springs to mind - I got myself sat down on my little folding stool with a flask of coffee and waited. It eventually came to me and showed quite cripplingly. 3 views totaling 4 minutes in a little over two hours [plus a point-blank Yellow-brow as icing on a very tasty cake :) ]. Though then there were two more hours of bugger all, of course... So when I'm at 'Gwarra I have a look at the Cover, but only as I'm passing to and from the main event. Bush-bashing's what you do when the weather's wrong to seawatch. ;)

I did get an unexpected Patch Tick, but not one for my yearlist. Common Hawker, near the Palace Hotel. Biggest dragon I've seen here! [Ok, the list is very short, {Its 4!} but what do you expect for a densely-populated urban area with cliffs, woods and some farmland? The ponds at Torre Abbey and Cockington can barely sustain the Mallard horde - odonata have no chance. There should be a few Demoiselles on the streams, but I've never seen one...]. Also, the annual "Oh shiiiiit!" moment, as a wandering juvenile Buzzard discovers that there are far worse things than Crows in the sky...

Patience, Persistence, and A Huge Scope III

After careful consideration of the weather forecasts, especially the wind, I decided that if I wanted to score some good birds today, I needed to desert my Patch and ideally go to 'Gwarra. This being unfeasible due to idleness [and the cost of petrol it has to be said, and the unwillingness to put up with the vast horde doubtless to be present after the jamminess of saturday] [[Ok, so I admit it; I'm a lazy stingy antisocial git.]] I decided that the next best thing was my standard go-to when the weather ain't right for the Bay - Prawle.

To my shock [yes, shock - really wasn't expecting it] I was alone. Seriously, I'd have thought one Very Famous Devon Birder would be there, but nope. The car park was filling just as I arrived, and later I met a family clambering about the rocks [or rather, they met me], but no other birders. Anyways, I gave it a mighty 7 1⁄2 hours - stretched out due to seeing a juicy squall coming when I was originally going to stop at 1730.

The early blasting sunshine and surprisingly nippy wind eventually gave way to overcast as a series of squally showers scored direct hits, as opposed to stalking by a mile or so out in the Channel. I went from melting in the heat to putting on everything I had and wishing I'd brought more - this is, by the way, more proof that 'You can never be too prepared' is true. An almost horizon-wide sun-glare switched to white squalls [that last one especially was a doozy!] and back again before the cloud more or less won. The wind switched around, the swell picked up and then dropped almost flat in the murk at one point. Day of big contrasts.

It was a watch of patchy nothings, flurries of birds, and moments of shear delight. Pun very intentional. If you've read the Devon Bird News blog you'll know what's coming - at 1334 a Cory's Shearwater, that's what. 9 minutes from Start. I had a Sooty go by further out and very fast at 1454, and a total of 659 Manx - every single one west. Not one Balearic that I could see... I did get an education in shapeshifting, though; I saw what for several seconds looked and flew like a Swift, low over the sea. Only it wasn't a Swift, it was a Manxie! Angles and flight action, angles and flight action... Next time I see him, I owe [Cornish Birder] an apology.. Also past [all west unless stated] 14 LBBs [including one intermedius; an adult flying next to an adult graellsii, which was considerate of it], 9 Fulmar, one lone adult Kittiwake, a Whimbrel, 99 Gannets west and 23 east, and that's all she wrote.

Except...

The thing about seawatching is that sometimes you see things. No, I'm not being funny. Sometimes you see things and just go ".......Huh?!???" Sometimes you see something fly past and try as you might you can't get a proper look at it. Sometimes you get a really great look at it, draw it nicely and you still can't find out what in the name of purple petunias it was..

As for today, the bird that went by between 1228 and 1232 [I got on it very early, for once]... Well, I'm not going to bore you to tears with a detailed account. I'm not ticking it. One day, when I know more, I might go back to it, but right now it's a ?

EDIT:

I come back to this many years later, having actually seen what I thought I'd seen then. Knowing what I did then, my conclusion was very reasonable. But knowing what I do now, I know this was not what I thought it was.

Ok, enough talking around things. I thought it was a Fea's. It looked like one, it was marked like one, but it didn't fly like one was supposed to. But the conditions were not ones in which anyone had seen a Fea's [or at least reported it], so it was a grey area. I did the right thing and put a ?

In fact, while there is the slight possibility it was a Fea's, it was 99% likely to have been a Fulmar. I have since seen Fulmars show plumages which are effectively a match for pterodromas of several species, with more than one showing a near duplication of Fea's. This has never been publicised to my knowledge, [which is I suspect another of those things like 1w and fresh adult ReedBunt plumages; a trap for the masses.] and ought to be. Take the 2015 'cornish Kermadec'... 

Put a weird spin on the day, but that's seawatching folks! Go on, go try it for yourselves, you never know what might go past next. [[0 auks and 1 Kittiwake - wft was with that?!?!]]

Red Hot News

Red Kite!! Mobbed by Herring Gulls over Torquay and drifted off north at 1147.

Breaking news from Backward Birding and in near real-time, as a Red Kite sends the local Herring Gulls all kinds of bonkers and the Backward Birder gets his reward for jumping up like a loon every time he hears them alarming. Garden and Patch Tick, oh yeah baby!!!! :D

PYL: 131

Public Humiliation...

They seem to delight in it, don't they? Those norty birds...

So, no sooner do I declare to the world* that all our Swifts have departed for the sunny south than I see that I am in fact wrong. Bugger. Yay too, for Swifts are Swifts and always a Good Thing but bugger in equal measure.

I was partly right, maybe you could argue even mostly right, as the main body of Swifts did indeed go on Tuesday, including all of the very local birds, and there are only 4 or so stragglers hanging around. 4 or so who are still here today, hunting over there this evening. ::Points::

Right then, post work birding consisted of heading to Bowling Green for the high tide, hoping for a nice yankee wader among the Dunlin, or at least that Ruff that showed up yesterday. Ha ha ha. Smallest waders were 3 Green Sands, plus a Snipe. " But where have all the Dunlin [and the White-rumped Sand that by rights should be with them - hey, I can dream!] gone??" Goosemoor, probably.. Curlew, Blackwit and Redshank all passed 200, with pleasing numbers of Whimbrel, Barwit [including s/pl] and Greenshank with them. A juvie Redshank had ridonkulously yellow legs [Yellowlegs yellow - made you look!], which was interesting and the best detail picked out of the detail look I gave the thronged waders [that Ruff might have been lurking]. A Fox came and had a look at them too, but skulked off without trying its luck.

It was hot and humid, just like most of the week's been [yuck] and I didn't have the energy to try somewhere else for odonata, so home I skulked to grab some shuteye and think about the forecast.. Not ideal, but possibly interesting?

[[*Yes, dear readers, you are my world. Touched? Probably. ;) ]]

Swift Update

[[Boom boom...]]

Waited a couple of days to be sure, as per usual, but I can now confirm that Swift Watch™ is concluded for another year. Our Swifts left on Tuesday, which at 2/8 is towards the earlier end of the range of departures. I guess the weather we've had may have been a factor [["Its going to rain how much?!? Sod that, let's go back to Africa!"]]. Always a shame when they go...