Avalon

The Levels in winter are a wonderful place. Even when it's bone freezingly cold or tipping down.

When the mistyfog strikes, the place gets seriously mythic

Pictures can't get even get close to expressing the magic of the place.


Of course, they also don't show the 0° at sunrise, the interesting mix of ice and mud underfoot, or the wonderful bouquet of the latter... Let alone the vexation in hunting a Ferruginous Duck in that visibility. It pains me to admit, but if I'd just been there to amble, I'd have had more fun. Not to say that I didn't. Oh no, not at all. It just would have been better if the Fudge had behaved.

Scwewy duckth and all that.



But the Fudge did not behave. Yes, spoilers and all that.
There were also reports of a RND about, and while he was a slippery bleep, I did eventually get him, at range, in the rain.

Gotcha.

Furthermore, there were reports of a Scaup. Hmm, went I. Scaup amongst the reeds, eh?

I managed to find that. And it was.. this;

'Greater Scaup'??

I do not think so.

Some patient pursuit [of the Fudge] led to this;

Yes, it is indeed an
Absolute Classic example of

Tufted Duck x Pochard

:D
Note the smooth grey back - not vermiculated or finely barred - and of course the Tufted Duck style bill!

I didn't just sit and wait at 'the spot' - or 'the spots' in this case - I was properly proactive and stalked about in the mist. I saw a few things, though not a sniff of a white-eyed Pochard.

Wait a minute.. you're not a Beardie!

Every blind approached with care

Yeah, no end of those mystic mist shots

Snipe

Floating Shoveler

Gadwall

Grrrrreat

The RND went thattaway...

Close bird! Gasp!

Lovely female ReedBunt

Mr Marshie

Yes, he's posing in front of Glastonbury Tor...

I went so far as to check over at Shapwick, in case the Fudge had snuck over there. When the sun magically came out, I could see - after a lot of scoping - that no it hadn't.


Another report I chased, twice, which ended up with me stood in the rain trying to get my dratted camera to focus through reeds, was of this;

This one wasn't Mute

Though it did get beaten up by one

Then the glorious Whooping Whooper drifted off amongst the reeds of Noah's and met.. Another! :)

You can just see bill pattern on r/h bird

They've switched, but again you can see different [it's the one up there] bill pattern

So two Whooper Swans. Very nice.

Not just Whoopers on Noah's, but an awful lot of ducks, mostly Wigeon

Dots in the drizzle

Ducks in the mist

The second shot from my earlier visit to Noah's, when the mist was there and then.. just gone. Very impressive use of the 'off' switch, as I later congratulated the RSPB bods ;)  There were a fair few Pintail, plus Shoveler, Tufty, Teal, and a lone female Goldeneye with the Wigeon horde. Also the inevitable Canadas, Mutes, and a few GC Grebes.

Speaking of Noah's..

Chevron shaped hide

Though unfortunately it also has many of the same problems as the Avalon Hide on HW; untreated wood already warping [one window couldn't be shut], lots of unused internal space [with football marks on the wall - that much room] but most of all the 'more wall than window' thing again..
You can see the one side window - it's too high and not wide enough for two to use comfortably with anything bigger than binoculars. The dead space between - you can see it at the corner of the building - blocks sight lines and encourages lenses [and worse] to be stuck outside. Which negates the primary purpose of a hide.

But what can you do?

Well, get hides designed by someone who is an actual birder, for a start? And built by somebody who knows how to use wood? It's not impossible - look at the Black Hole, people!

Just a few personal thoughts.


Anyway...

Despite the bad things [and it wasn't all bad; you can at least fit more people in, even if they can't see as well and the seating is better than in Avalon; proper benches with proper footrests, well done], there were still good views to be had;

Strike a pose

Mirror

 Play time?

Much fancier duds than at Beesands

Play time? Well, it didn't seem that aggressive between those two

Marsh Harrier and Peregrine

I find the relative sizes interesting - you don't realise how small all harriers are just watching them fly.. [And how could they be such a threat when they're so teeny, eh?]

Speaking of..

Different bird from above

1w

And now we cut to the finale.
I had not had a sniff of Bittern all day, and as time was getting on [not just the rain dimming things in those Whooper shots] I decided to try another spot, so I toddled up to the Meare hide to see if a Bittern would fly past to see the Starlings roosting at Ham Wall.

Nice plan, right?

Well, total failure - not a Bittern at all! - but also total success. First were birds wandering over Ham Wall way.. then, well, they came back. All of them.
I apologise in advance, as the low light means there's not a sharp pic to come, and some are awful even by my standards. But all are here for a reason...

3cy male - note grey in tail

Presumably the same bird, later on

Adult female

Two 2cy

Different adult female;

note tail damage

Adult male

At least seven - seven!! - Marsh Harriers showed up after 1600; two different males and females, the 3cy male and the two 2cys. Just to rub it in, I had seven harriers in view at once on two occasions!

Wait, why 'harriers'..???

Now THAT is not a Marsh!

Things got even sillier, when I got on it again more than twenty minutes after I took that, thought 'ooh', then looked off to the right and..wait?!? ARGH! Two Hen Harriers!!!

Yes, NINE harriers. Nine.

Insane. Mad. Craaaaaazy.

Why all the raptor fun [yes, other raptors about too - they didn't linger in the mind for some reason]?

These guys

Dots

A lot of dots

A Very Loud Murmuration

Zoom in

Zoom out

They came to me. I couldn't believe it... The noise was insane, 'murmuration' implies a soft sort of sound, not something you have to raise your voice to be heard over. In a way they were too close, I had not a hope of a count!
Many years ago [pre LBD], I talked the Folks into wandering up onto the Levels for the day and we stayed on for the Starlings - guessing Loxton's and being joyously right. Stood on the railway line with the crowd going 'ooohh' and being glad we had hats! ;)  It was the only close Starling view I'd had before this, I'd reckoned there wasn't a likely way to get closer.. Wrong. :D



So I really wasn't bothered by the bashful Bitterns, and I've almost forgiven that scwewy duck. Almost.


Not a bad day on the Levels.


Be Seeing You..

Delayed Posting

I apologise, but I'm suffering technical issues. Whether this is due to gaggle or my wonderful ISP and the miles of copper attached to it*, I'm not sure, but photos are being problematic right now.


Posts will come.

Short and long, near and far.

Will anything work for me now?

Off Meadfoot on Sunday

One!

This was going to be a quick Patch update post, but only one pic worked, so here you are.

Handful of divers and grebes off Meadfoot in the north wind, usual birds lurking onshore, found a nice fungus. I will post properly when I can.

Hm.

Oh well, I will eventually

Be Seeing You..





[[*Fibre? Fibre? I don't know what witchcraft you speak of...]]

Interlude

And now, an attack from my camera;

Bug!
[You might want to go back to bed, mate..]

Blackcap!

It had to be done.

Nice primaries

Fluffball on the fatball

Got it!
[Well, most of it..]

Nuthatch

"I laugh at your puny gravity!"

That is all.


Be Seeing You..

There Were Ducks

Winter birding often involves ducks. They are one of the few birds largely unaffected by weather - find water, find ducks.

Being of not quite sound body on my little sojourn off work, I decided not to be too nutty getting out there and so, yes, ducks were likely to feature.

There were and still as I type are, a few nice ducks knocking about the SW, and as I had history with several of them* I thought there might be an opportunity for some revenge. Getting good views and even decent pictures of birds I'd repeatedly dipped and at most got distant blob shots of seemed like perfectly reasonable excuses to me for going out and having some fun sat in hides out of the weather. :)

And I find a winter incomplete without a trip up on to the Levels.



First up, closest and best yet in Devon, was a certain Ring-necked Duck [worthy of no more than RND from hereon] at Beesands. Not been there for a while, either, and there were pictures of it at close range ::rubs hands::

The forecast was not promising, but the ley should be sheltered and rain keeps the grockles off, right?

I took the scenic route out on the off chance of low-flying Bittern over Slapton - no dice - and arrived to find a scene of near, far, and hiding Tufties and.. oh, there he is. Hiding behind the outer island

Yup, very close

Tufties

Pochard

Shoveler

"This is definitely my best side"

Now the autofocus works through cover.....

"Come on, mate. Show a little feather.."

"Aww, gee, alright, I guess..."

"So he's going to show a bit better?"

"I'm coming, I'm coming"

"How's this?"

Yeah, whatever.

The sea was, well, there. I found a GND off towards Start but little else aside from the inevitable Gannets.

Spot the GND

I toddled up to Slapton in search of what I could find. Which turned out to be not that much. Of note, there were quite a few Goldeneye - eventually I found seven [3 and 4] - but they were off around the majority of the waterfowl, who were in a mass up opposite Scaup Point;

Looking north from Stokeley blind

Oh, there they are..

[Note the male Goldeneye]

Up close and personal, much to my delight were

Little Grebe in the reeds

Four!

And because it is required;

Bathing beauties

Pink flowers!

The forecast rain arrived only in drizzle form, but the wind was fairly brisk and moderately toothy. No Bitterns or Marsh Harriers [let alone Otters] on view, but I wasn't worried. Guess what the next day held?

Wonder where this was taken..?

Be Seeing You..






[[*See past posts for the vexations of Ring-necked Ducks especially..]]

A Little Time Off

As has been my habit in recent years, I took a little time off work to do some winter birding.

I also actually dragged myself off Patch - and though lurgy and weather limited me a bit, I wasn't going to be denied everything. I even got up onto t' Moor..!

If I summed the proper birding ones up with 'two Ring-necked Ducks in as many days', you'd have a pretty good idea of where I went.

However, time is not with me today, so I'll inflict a Patch report on you now and do more about the rest later. And there is more, oh yes... :D


The Patch has been rather quiet compared to some neighbouring areas, with a lack of fancy gulls posing for photo shoots [mutter mutter]. I've been gradually building back up as I get over the plague - and perhaps spent too much time on clifftops and breakwaters staring at blobs on the sea while the wind tried to freeze my hands off - so there wasn't the hardcore seawatching there should have been at certain points. Daytime efforts were largely inland, and largely fruitless aside from the expected regulars.

But I have done my best with the Blackball roost and the north end of the Bay.

'White-throated' Blackbird

Taken during my BGBW!

Song Thrush

Another Song Thrush

[200m down the road]

Monday evening GC Grebe raft

Numbers were down 'a bit'.. to say the least!
About a 60% reduction in grebe numbers. A lack of divers also, and a reduction - though only about 40% - in auks, and far more Guillemots than Razorbills now present.

"I'm really a Chough"

With the wind shifting to the northern half of the compass, the top end of the Bay actually has a shot at some birds - with the Broadsands RNG sneaking into Patch waters during the day, even - though not much of one, what with all the frickin' jet skis.. [Mutter mutter]
But there have been four GC Grebes and even 4 Mutes off Torre Abbey, with better stuff further off and the usual light scattering of mostly Guillemots, so not all bad, eh?
Purple Sand numbers are down, too, with only two visibly roosting on Monday's tide and only one Turnstone about.

This post will be expanded with some very bad grebe shots, and maybe some more scenic views in the near future, but I've a ton of freshwater shots to sort out before I stick anything else on, so they'll have to wait until after the other stuff is up. They should be slightly better then the dots up there, though. 'Should'.

Looking southwards from Haldon Pier

And to the east

London Bridge and Berry Head in one shot

Finally, I can't let you go without some gull-based horror...

"Actually, I'm a smith in disguise, 

but I've gnawed off my ABA ring so nobody will believe it!"

When a gull strikes a pose, it's rude not to make good use of it

Larus argentatus argenteus

Bah, who needs bladdy Kumlien's anyways......



Be Seeing You...