Being A Thorough And Responsible Birder; Now Extended!

Saw me following up on the reported Wilson's Phalarope on Friday.

Stop sniggering, it was reported in clear good faith, and well, stranger things have happened. Like Serins.

[[Mutter mutter]]


Yeah, you may not be shocked to discover that, despite a careful search all about the area where the Kenn meets Exe, and indeed further afield, there was no sign.
Greenshank, Spotshank, Sanderling, yes, plus some nice Pintail, but no phalaropes of any kind.

However, I did catch two reprobates, via sneakily sneaking up on them...

Gotcha you bar stewards

At frickin' last.

"I knew we should have taken that

left turn at Alburqurque..."

After that, with a spring in my step and a song in my heart, I toddled along the way, then where a dogleg in the levee gave a little shelter from the ravening wind, dropped over and settled down with the scope to munch some lunch and see what might be about*. There's nothing like sitting quietly to get birds to come to you, especially when you're below the skyline.
This, however does not work when you have not only yapping fools passers-by stopping and talking loudly right by you, but a bloke with a deranged dog - which really took a dislike to me and was not even vaguely on a lead - barking and growling away feet from my ears..**

Ho hum.

You would have thought the weather would have kept them off, or at least moving, but no.


Aaanyway, no wonderful close wader pics, but here's a little of what was inside a half kilometre..

Jackdaws!

Redshank

Sanderling

Pintail,

plus Oyk and Common Gull

Horrid gull

Low-flying Dunlin!

The inevitable Shelduck

Oh yes, I ought to put up something from earlier..

Kennmouth

Red- and Greenshanks

Canadas in view were interrogated for any lurking grey geese [well, if you don't ask..], but not even a Greylag was in sight. However, careful inspection of all the fields in the area [some creative routing may have occurred] revealed a Red-leg as well as masses of Pheasants, so another one in the Yay column.

Then back to the real world.


Cold, damp, and rather prickled is how I got my vengeance.





Be Seeing You...

[[*Powderham Bend is a favourite viewpoint of mine, as you can see from Topsham to Exmouth - with a big scope, anyway! - {though not the Warren and Starcross, due to the yacht club}. Or in this case 'dark wader which looked like the Dowitcher' to RNG; two birds you wouldn't expect to be in view from the same spot! :D ]]
[[**The dog, not the bloke. The bloke did tell the dog off, but when it ignored him, he - oh never mind...]]

Go (North) West! Pt. 2, All The Pretty Scenery

Being photos of assorted sceneries around Roadford and the Taw/Torridge areas.

On with it;

Roadford

Spot the Pinkies. ;)

Very scenic

Canadas in the mist

[plus photobombing Wigeon] 

Now, look veeeery carefully

You won't see the Pinkies, that's the wrong bit!

:)

Not all water

Caption Competition

The Sheep posed, so I had to.

Not as balmy as the sunshine implies!

Spot The Pinkies 2

All very scenic

Fremington Quay

Fremington Pill

The view from Mr. Taylor's bench

Sunsetting

Sun set

Fremington Quay again.

Little less water. And light.

Yeah...

Tha-tha-tha-that's all, folks.


Be Seeing You...

Mud

Friday.

No, not this last Friday, the one before.



Yeah.


So, I took my last post-work afternoon for a while to make another, determined and definitive attempt to finally get Gyppo for the year.

Started at Powderham Marsh. Ok, technically started at Exminster, then hit Powderham, scanned most of the rest of Exminster from there, also went to Dart's, Matford, Bowling Green etc., Powderham [the church and castle end], Starcross, and even Cockwood.

Spoiler a- frickin- lert.


It was rather muddy, but I was wellied and they handled it much better than flood waters. So that was something.

I did not see no birds, in fact I saw something that made me laugh. After I'd finished saying naughty words at him.

Pics....

After you get past the mud..

Cirl Bunting.

[Yeartick]

No, not him.

Itsa female bunting..

Observe the rump;

Cirl.

Right, so, on the water..

Drake Scaup

FFS.....


You have to laugh.

Song Thrush

Brents

Kingfisher

Kestrel

Awwwwww

Curses. Foiled again.

It's not funny.



Be Seeing You...

January Sea Watching And Other Patchyness

The space in the title is very deliberate, by the way.

It was only this last Sunday that I dragged myself out to head down the Nose and do some seawatching, on account of an actual front coming by when i could get at it [shock]. It wasn't ideal - too late in the day and after no decent preliminary weather - but you takes what you can get.

As an aside, I am determined, after last year's pitiful showing, to seawatch at least once every month. You read it here.

I didn't give it all day, but I tried. What did I see? Bugger all, really!

As expected.

I had hopes, of course, of interesting auks and maybe skuas and so on. I didn't even see a diver! [Ok, The Boss was at Berry Head and only had 2 RTDs, which probably came out of the Bay...]

A variety of gulls, lots of mostly local Guilles and a few Razorbills, but not a lot YT-wise. One very interesting gull looked horribly like an adult [or more likely subadult] YLG, but did not let me photo it, on account of it flying past at an inconvenient moment. Also the light was crap.

So, the odd picture;

Common Gull

Best thing that I got on pixels.
Yeah.

BHG

The SWBCM fired up

[thus gulls above]

I had my mad hopes fired up again by this, dreaming of white winged things, but not even a Med Gull....

Oh well, worth a try.

Count the Grey Seals

There's 5, if you can't be bothered.

Guillemots being harassed by gulls;

a GBB and two Herrings

Ooh, what's this??

Some of you may be thinking; 'Hmm, maybe he was winding us up about seeing nothing? Is that an Iceland? Even a Kumlien's??'

It's a Common Gull. Full adult, full primary tip markings. Same bird you saw up there, in fact.
You see, the camera does lie.
:)

Great Black-backed Gulls.

Size / structure variation.

Horrible blurry gulls in the rain

I'd stick numbers up, but well.. 18 Gannets an hour? Only figure of interest was 28 Common Gull, which is quite a lot for the Nose. [At least these days].

This is how the day ended

Day before I patrolled the Patch without finding any year ticks or even anything really interesting..

Blackcap shows us his Blyth's Reed pose

Star of the big garden birdwatch

[if only I hadn't forgotten to actually add it...]

Pied Wagtail

Summer Snowflake.
It's all Spring and stuff

More ketchup to come, including Yet Another Wild Goose Chase [this time I get too serious], that Pretty Scenery, and Getting Wet For Birds Again.


Be Seeing You...

Scandal And Calumny

Very different post, here.


So, those of you in this here part of the world may well have noticed the trend in recent years for stealth inflation. Things made smaller instead of more expensive [or smaller AND more expensive..], or you get fewer of them.

Well, latest low;

Heresy!

Now, Gold bars aren't [or weren't] the biggest things to begin with, [they used to sell them in 9's] but they've shrunk them a lot. Even worse, they've also changed the recipe - adding glucose syrup [so much for the sugar tax, eh? Or doesn't that count???], for example - so they don't even taste the same.

Well, take a long look mcvities, that's the last one I buy.


That is all.