SnowBirding!

Oh, Saturday... It snowed, it did.


Not much in the way of settling happened, and the snow turned from sleet to rain [then hail, then a bit more snow..], but still. Scchhhnoooooooooww!!!!



Ahem.


I decided to get out and do some nice proper birding. In the snow and rain and frigid wind.. Ah, but where's the fun in easy? [Don't answer that]

Exminster Marsh had these guys;

There's at least 12 there...

And this guy, hunting insects in the grass by a gate and doing a wonderful impression of a teeny feathered Serval;

Chiff

Pounce!

What a cracker! :D

Did I mention it was snowing?

Not heavily enough to hide this lot, alas

Lots of Wigeon and Lapwing present, though the AmWig avoided me.


On across the river!

On Goosemoor, the Spotshank was less elusive than it had been on the 1st;

Spot the shank.. [oh dear]

Bowling Green was a nice place to stop for some rations and to coo over the hordes of birds, many up close and personal;

Song Thrush

Snipe

Snipe

Blackwit

Snipe!

That Thing

This Thing is of note. You see, while they are recorded most winters, I've never actually seen a [I can't say wild] free one before! That blur along the base of shot is the boundary fence below the hide, btw. Yes, that close.....

Wide shot;

Lots of water, lots of birds

At low tide, too

Of especial note were the vast Pintail numbers, with at least 97 present! They were all over the shop [but none came close like those lovely Wigeon, alas].

I wandered on around the point, past Avocets off the Goatwalk [not a good photo op, see earlier post for that] and eventually up to the Rec. There were 4 Goldeneye up by the M5 bridge, but much closer [yes, here it comes...] was this...

YBW

It stayed up high and very mobile, but Ye Gods and Little Fishies, I got it!!!!!!!!

A Famous Bicycling Birder was also present, so out of respect to him I did not actually do the Dance Of Joy, but oh I wanted to...  :D


Finishing up, I took a detour on the way back, namely a wee wander about the Haldon Ridge, where the Folks had through amazing skill/fortune/both found this;

A bit of [crap] local flint?

[Left / upper side]

But look at that shaped edge...

[Right / lower side]

I'm not an expert by any means*, but having had a very educational meeting with a real knapper, I've seen what a shaped edge looks like. Yeah, this is rubbish quality flint [good stuff goes 'ping' like crystal], but when you're here, you've just killed a something and you need to butcher it, and what's to hand works.. ::shrug::

Held in the right hand: Upper view; First finger along straight edge at top, thumb sits in a depression in the angle. Lower view; first finger along the top, middle finger sits along the lit face below the little ridge.
You get a scraper which fits the hand beautifully.
How old it is? Not a clue, really. Could even be modern. 

The site is the shoulder of a watershed [as usual] and the tool came out of the root bole of a big tree. I had a good look and couldn't find anything else, though I'm not good enough to pick knapped off strikes from naturally broken bits. Also, the assorted leaves and liberal dousing of snow didn't help.


Right then, after all that fun, here's something at which I just had to laugh. Really, I had to...

Be Seeing You..





[It's not politics!]

[[*Not at flint knapping, let alone archaeology!]]

Eeeuuurrgh.....

An interim post due to.. well, stuff.


I didn't get a lot of birding done today, as I had Things To Do and So On. But I did make the time to stop by the Real Living Coast, where there were at least 8 Purple Sandpipers to coo over, with 3 Turnstones and a couple of Rockits. I hadn't taken my camera - like I said, not proper birding - so no tiny dots of the 19 GC Grebes in view [with 1 Razorbill] in the top end of the Bay.

Needless to say, I inevitably found something. Indeed, a something so 'orrible that it demanded recording.

No, no mercy, no escape. It's Back To the Old Days... The DREADED PHONEBINS OF DOOOOOOOOM!!!!!  Mua-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.........


Ahem.

Yeah, so here you go, more horribly unfocused burnt out monstrosities. Don't enlarge these I beg you;

One of these gulls is not like the others..

::Faints in horror::

Now it's going off in a huff..

And it did, swimming out into the Harbour then flying off before I could get more than these.

So, we have a more-or-less Herring Gull sized dark grey-backed gull, missing some facial feathers but still with a really chunky bill. Judging by said bill a 2w but with lots of adult type feathers. You can't see the tail, which is a real bugger as it had a huge black bar, with black reaching up many of the outer webs [I think], creating a Pied Wheatear-like effect*.

[*But from a deeper terminal bar and without the black central feathers]


Funny ickle Geeb? GBBxHerring? GBBxLBB???


Whatever spawned it, I know two things; One, I'm gonna need the brain bleach. Two, so are you. ;)



Proper posting with proper birding and proper photos of some properly pretty birds will follow at some point in the coming week. Trust me, these ones you do want to see! :D



Be Seeing You..

All The Other Stuff. And That Duck.

Right then, here's that ketchup post thing I promised..


But first, you may be interested in a certain duck?

Yeah, that one

It's a hybrid.

There, relax.

Despite seeming in that shot to be a RND, in the feather it actually looked horribly like a Lesser Scaup, but with too much black on the bill tip and a reddish cast to the purple gloss on its bonce. No idea as to wingbar, but I'd guess that's off, too. On the day I wondered about TuftyxFudge or TuftyxPochard, but having looked into it more, I'm wondering about LesserScaupxRing-necked Duck [or maybe even LScaupx(LScaupxRedhead)!!]..?

Gorgeous little bird, whatever spawned it [and wherever - what if it came from over the pond, genuine vagrant, but 'cos its a hybrid nobody cares?  lol]



So, other stuff from last week. [Oh, the terrible delay...]
 Monday saw a nice family trip along the Teign. In the rain. There were bacon baguettes, so it was all good. There were also many Dippers. And a certain Little Black Dog.

Spot The Dipper

Pretty pretty

Love that Birch

'orrible...

The day before [which would be Sunday, I think] was one of wind and rain and so on. I toddled down to the Nose and had a look at the sea. I even saw a few birds!

Though not for a while.

After a couple of hours of auks, Gannets, and Kittiwakes but nothing sexier, I was thinking about giving up, but then a GC Grebe flew past! So I stayed on and then an RT Diver did, too. Ho hum, maybe things were picking up? The SWBCM picked up, which was a start;

There were a few gulls about

Ok ok, I'm stopping with the gullses..


..Apart from one that dodged the camera [despite my best attempts] was a nice little 1w Little Gull, which bobbed about cutely between managing to get in and out without me seeing it in the air.. Hm. Definitely seen in the air was another diver, and this one was a cracking Black-throat! The icklest of gulls may be scarcer, but the BTD was definitely bird of the day. :)



Even earlier I went on a little trip to see soaring things, which succeeded, though not with the kind of views The Boss gets, more's the pity.

 Itsa Buzzard!

I then went on to another site on the fringe and had a look for Dippers, and even found one!

That white patch

In [slightly better] focus

Fewer birds but better views.

Getting closer to now in time, I took a prowl about the Patch on Saturday last [was it? Yes, I think so..]. Lots of foot-pounding about the streets, and I was delighted to find not only a couple of Treeeeecreeeepers singing at each other - in the garden of someone with far too much money - but some actual House Sparrows! These are surprisingly scarce in much of what is a very urban core of my Patch. I have had exactly two on my property since I moved here, both one visit wonders, and these are the first on the fancy side of The Hill that I've found. So quite happy. :)

Finally catching up.. Sunday saw me out for a yomp on t' Moor! I defied the forecast winds and heavy showers of hail and even thunder [that's what they said!] and went up between Avon and Erme. The wind was indeed stiff to strong, but apart from a little not-even-drizzle early on, no rain and even sunshine eventually ensued! I covered a little over 12 miles on rather wet ground, which wasn't bad, and even found some snow! :D 

I also found a mighty 4 Golden Plover and a more impressive 83 Fieldfare [in 3 groups]. Three each of Skylark and Mipit were braving the elements still up there. Right, piccies!;

Snow!

From Western White Barrow

[Redlake Heap and The Heap of Sinners in the foreground]

[Various famous Hills/Tors in background]

Winter Sun over Hickley Moor

The Dancers 

and the end of their row

Could be summer!

Ugborough Beacon from Hickley Tor

Ahh, twas Glorious up there.


Aaaaannd we're up to date.

[Ok, the sunshine brought the Bugs out, but that can wait.]



Be Seeing You..

Diver Diver!

Decided to wander over to Berry Head for today's incoming 'not a storm as it's only hitting the south west'. Something about a strong SE, with big waves and a high tide made me decide against the Nose. Oh yeah, the whole sewage spray thing, that's it.


I was amazed to find nobody there, even more so when nobody showed up. I mean, I know it's February, but this is the time of year when insanely rare seabirds can show up, and The Boss had scored the day before...  Oh well.

Yeah, so as you might guess from the title, there were a few divers on display. First up the best bit as a flock of seven went by southwards; six Red-throats and a Black!! Singles of Red- and Black- followed on, with a GND heading into the Bay. Other fancy birds included.. Well, absolutely nowt. In five hours. Not a skua. Not a grebe. Not a duck - not even a Mallard...

There were hordes of auks - I didn't even try clicking them, they were zooming through at all ranges and many were plonking down, too. A timed count gave 361 in ten minutes.. Yes, more than Two Thousand an hour..... The rate didn't let up, either, so that's maybe TEN THOUSAND passing while I was there. Gannets, Kittiwakes, and Fulmars were also moving in the low to mid hundreds.

There was a fair swell running

The sea chucked more water on me than the clouds did - not what I expected.

Under the sea there was more variety, with the Harbour Porpoises joined by brief Common Dolphin and longer Common Seal* sightings.



A catchup post will ensue soon, covering the bits I've missed out, including another seawatch and a few other things, too.


Be Seeing You..



[[*1. I've seen far more Grey Seals in harbours, 2. Black-headed Gulls.]]

The Eighth Goosander

Was the one that got too close.

Can you guess where this is?

The other nine [there were 2 more after him] stayed at a better distance to avoid infamy.


This was yesterday, when I did what I'd booked this week off to do last year. [Did that sentence make sense?] Yeah, so, I'd realised it had been a very long time since I'd been up to zumerzet to just go birding. [As opposed to chasing Hudwits and things.. ;) ] So, I resolved to fix this and decided that the bit where Jan and Feb meet would be the best balance of day length and cold weather while minimising crowds.

Yeah, that really worked.

Yon GoosygoosyGoosander was bobbing about here;

Cheese?

Unlike the RC Pochards I'd been hoping for. Which were utterly not there at all.


Eeeearlier, I'd been on t' Levels, where things went pretty well, bird-wise;

Mega mega White Thing

Flight shot

Flight shot!!

Flight shot!!!

A Dash of Colour

Less Colour

Whooooo!

-per.

Only two Whooper Swans - which dropped into Noah's just before noon, then vanished when collective eyes went off them [hiding behind an island or driven off by psycho Mutes?] - but the joy deserved two pics.

At least 4 Marsh Harriers - 1w, 2w f., ad f., ad m. - which all showed from Noah's [though as Decoy was helpfully 'closed for refurbishment', no better shots]. Couple of flying Bitterns [alas my camera sulked and refused to properly focus on the point-blank flypast...], Beardies were less keen to be immortalised - you know they're being naughty when you can get a Cetti's!! - but what can you do?

Unfortunately, I was just too late to catch the Starlings on electrons - just think about the locusts from Planet Earth II and you've got it..! - being distracted by going "Wooooaaah!", though I doubt they'd have come out properly, as it was still dimpsy.


Also of note, the maker was elusive but not the evidence of passage;

That's the ubiquitous scaling 10p, btw

There's been a lot of activity since last I wandered about that way, with paths improved [which is something of a two-edged sword, what with all these people using them. I mean, really...] and hides built.
I would have liked to put in something about the fancy crowd-sourced hide overlooking Meare Heath tanks, but was unamused to find it locked. Very public. Very considerate. The people can pay but they may not use. Hm.


Definitely open was the big fancy thing over the road;

The road to Avalon

Actual height? Ooohh....

Mandatory hill shot

Good location, good height, nice and roomy.. Yes. But unfortunate design flaws;

Oh dear

The now-expected badly-designed raspberry windows were a given, but the massive gaps? And why do they need such huge chunks of wood [which even staff admit will likely fall to bits inside 10 years due to construction issues]? They're not sicking another storey on, after all.
Also, plastic school chairs [lovely and noisy, though I admit back support is a welcome thing] and windows on one side only, as they don't seem to realise what internal partitions are for. Still, at least it is an actual hide and not a wide-open to view and weather pergola like Tor View.. 

I've said it before, I'll say it again, look at the Black Hole for properly designed hides [well, there's the odd minor issue with the seating.. ;) ].
It's a symptom of what's happened to the RSPB; once you get above the wardens and volunteers who get their hands dirty and look at the desk drivers, you find it's largely run by professional charity workers, who don't actually know much about birds and certainly don't wear bins unless being photographed. So you see examples like this; design in terms of artistic eco-engineering that miss the primary requirement. But never mind, they tick lots of boxes and look so nice on paper.


Ahem.

Here's another new [re]build;

Recreation of the Sweet Track

Tucked away but worth looking for. I must admit to surprise that it's not fenced off. I mean, the HSE would have a fit if anyone actually walked along it, right? [[Maybe I shouldn't be writing this..?]]


Now, here's an idea. Having seen the lengths [and tons of chippings] required to keep tracks about the Levels open, can we not take a leaf from the Ancestors' ways and do as they did. Mud and flooding are not anywhere near the issues when you're elevated, and with a wider, more stable version [Flag Fen, anyone?] of their design, we can move people without creating artificial partitions.

Just a thought.


Finally, I have a health and safety concern to raise, as it seems the safeguards put in place are woefully inadequate to protect the public from a terminal encounter;

The Great Serpent of Somerset..

All this and I hardly got rained on at all. And I haven't even got to the other fun thing I found on Noah's Lake. Namely, this pretty little character;

Between the Wigeon and the Tufty

Oh, I say....



Be Seeing You..