Hot Date With Cara

First of all, no that's not a typo up there.

[Rant deleted]


Ahem.

Secondly, blagger have seen fit to remove the Spellcheck function, so expect typos and eccentric spelling now and again. I do read this thing through [more than once] but it's amazing how the eye slides over your own mistakes... ::shrugs::


Anyways, with sustained SWerlies and some proper fronts finally coming through last Sunday, I couldn't not get in my monthly minimum. Despite the actual wind direction being far from ideal [you need a good SE or at least S overnight to push the birds right into Lyme Bay], and the seeming lack of heavy rain meaning it was unlikely the SWBCM would fire up before it got dark..
Despite all that, I was down the Nose in the morning - far too early for a coming night shift week - and I gave it far longer than it deserved. But, while the numbers were truly awful, oh the spots of shock...

Whowhatwherewhenhow???? Read on.


Amazingly, I found nobody at the Nose. You'd think threats of Force Ten winds wouldn't deter people, but well... I did find myself cowering in the lee watching from the Tower, rather than by the Wall, as the wind was rather twisty, and yes, blowing a frickin' hoolie. Taking the limited field of view seemed worth it with me not expecting the chummer to fire up [I've said it twice now, can you guess..?] , and indeed, with the way the wind went, it was the right call. I hate to think what it would have ben like on the Steps if my spot was still there [yes, I would have tried it]..

So;  Frisky. :)

Lead Stone strangely gull-free...??

Field of View.

I naturally never caught the best waves - including the one that broke white water right up onto the top of the Ore Stone - but you get the idea. Note the reef right [SW ish] of the Ore Stone, visible as a line of white water. The further edge is about 3/4 of the width of the island right of it from this viewpoint; there was the odd lovely vertical burst of spray from this [I got a picture of one similar near Pendeen Watch after Booby1 last Autumn].

Ok, birdies.

Numbers? More pictures? Well, in 6.5 hours [yes, I lasted that long] I counted 93 Gannets past. All south.
Yeah, I know; epic, truly vast passage..

Auks [the Ore Stone was bare, but Guillemots and half a dozen Razorbills went by] 16, Kittiwakes 28, Fulmars 20, and not a great deal else that wasn't a gull. I was hoping for a skua or two, at least the odd diver, maybe even a fancy auk, but nope. A Red-breasted Merganser went by north almost overhead - I'd have missed it if I hadn't been so far back! - which was a surprise [First on Patch for a while. To think, they used to winter in the Bay in double figures..]

But the big shock.. Ah, that also went by north, but much lower and skimming the shoreline, maybe 20' up... I got on it - really lucky not to be looking through optics at the time - and went 'Huh, that's a funny-looking gull..???' And got bins on it as it got level and then the angled wings were no not gull, oh look at that tail fork...!!!

A frickin Red Kite. A Red Kite. What the frilly knickers?!?!?!?

Looked like a [very soggy] 2cy..


You just couldn't make it up, could you?

[You would - to those who aren't keen birders - expect pretty much every Red Kite in the country to be clustered around the feeding stations {such as Gigrin Farm, Wales} over winter. All I can conclude is that the unusually mild weather has caused a few - well, at least one - to not bother as there's enough to eat elsewhere..?? Well, either that or a) someone's wondering where their pet Kite is, or b) I experienced a truly amazing hallucination*. **]


Photo? Aha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-haaa....


I did get some of the assorted gulls, so here you go;

Herring Gull!

Nice classic argenteus, with whiter head for time of year, blue-ish hue to saddle, and primaries showing lots of black, not much white when compared to nominate argentatus.

 

GBB

[FYI non-birders; Pronounced 'Geeb', stands for Great Black-backed Gull. Which is a mouthful. A mouthful being what GBBs make of anything smaller than them....]

Gull ID Contest 1

Gull ID Contest 2

[Spot the Gull!] ID Contest 3

ID Contest 4

1 is pretty easy, 2 is.. well, quite interesting, 3 is worth making a comparison to that nice argenteus, and 4 is also educational.
Yes, I am being deliberately cryptic.

Ok, enough of that..
Better pictures ahoy!

Common Gull

Adult, winter plumage

Look at that primary tips shot! :)
If only I could get a fancy gull to pose like that..  ::wistful sigh::

Horribly blurred but 

adult winter and 3cy Common Gull

compasrison shot!

Yup, the SWBCM is up and running

Interestingly [maybe something to do with the weather?] Common Gulls outnumbered BHGs by more than 3:1 [Totals 35 and 9]

Big gulls hiding along The Sole

Well, they had to loaf somewhere.. Nothing sexy caught the eye amongst their ranks, more's the pity. None of the ID Contest birds are with them.

Also of interest, this appeared;

Looming out of the gunk...

And heeling over quite alarmingly in the wind!

L800 'Rotterdam'

Dutch amphibious assualt ship ['Landing Platform Dock' in the proper parlance], dropped into the Bay before anchoring out in Lyme. She was the only thing moving on the sea - which was good if unexpected, there's usually a nutty yachtie out there, even in awful weather.. - without feathers.


So, an interesting little visit. Definitely worth the try. And I didn't get soaked. Or blown away [though I went sideways crossing LookOut on the way down..!]


Be Seeing You...



[[*Shut up.]]
[[**Though, of course, the above Disclaimer still applies.]]

Drastic Measures. Also Revenge!

And I didn't even need ninja training.

Ahem.


So, after another Attack Of the Mutant Head Of Utter Doomy Doom And Despair. Also Pain., I got myself out chasing birds on Sunday with determination to do something OTT. With the female RCP so beloved of yearlisters seeming to have done a bunk from Saltram [nr Plimoth, btw] to parts unknown*, I decided it'd need to be the Hard Medicine..

So, back up to the Taw/Torridge for the second time this year [gasp].

Wrafton Pond was shockingly quite easy to both find and access, and looking through the first gap in the trees from the Tarka trail...

Ding-ding-ding Jackpot

Yup.

:D

Males are something else. Especially in Devon males. :)

When they're awake, anyway..

Photobomb by a nice 1w Goldeneye

"Who-wha-...huh..?"

Regular flavour Pochard came much closer

Wrafton Pond

Little Grebe plus unlucky Stickleback

A couple of local lads were on site, and we had a merry old time shooting the breeze and trying to shoot the Pochard, despite the briskness of said breeze.

But eventually I decided to move on and find somewhere to sit down..

For some reason I found myself taking a slight detour.

The long and, er, not so winding trail

Yup, back at Fremington. Where there was, despite a very thorough search, no sign of the Isbis. But there were some birds;

Redshank

Greenshank

Spotshank

:D

Curlew

Shelduck

I did not neglect to look up when seeking the isbis, and while I didn't find it, I did find something else in the roost site;

Cattle Egret!

:)

Which cheered me up quite a bit. So, I toddled off estuary-way to see if the isbis was lurking out there [unlikely] or in one of the muddy fields [possible].

I found..

Mud

Common Gull

Mud and gulls

Very small section of a flock of mostly BHGs - with Commons, the odd Herring, and at least 3 Meds - on Home Farm Marsh. It may look green from this angle, but trust me, mud...

Collared Dove

So, getting dusky again, this time it was still light as I drove back down the pill, keeping an eye on th- GOTCHA!!!

Glossy Ibis!!

With attendant Little Egret

Very Glossy

Another scenic route home again failed to get me a nocturnal flypast, but hey. Keep at it.

A long way to go, but some good birding [despite mud and attacks by barbed wire...] and revenge is always tasty. :)


Be Seeing You...

Rain

Friday.

No, not this last one [with the Gyppos and awful Exe bird photos], the one before. Slightly less wind, lot more drizzle. Getting on with it....


With rain forecast to arrive mid-late morning, though maybe not stick around all day, I decided - as I had to get things done - to go out chasing birds first thing. I had a year tick to catch up with, and a seemingly reliable even photo-possible Siberian Chiffchaff or two [despite them turning up fairly frequently] seemed to need not ignoring. Bonus Firecrest[s], too. Especially as the frickin' RCP at Saltram seems to have gone... :(

I found weather consisting of sideways drizzle. Right into the face of anyone mad enough to try to see birds in Broadsands Ley [well, it is! A teeny one, but still]

I was powered by no sleep and utter determination. The birds, after about twenty minutes of watching me get soggy and scowl ever more vehemently, gave up and showed. Quite a lot of them, in fact. Tits, warblers, finches, buntings, crests... It all got quite busy once you found the right spot[s] and nobody was wrangling baying hounds in the [immediate] vicinity. :)

They didn't sit still, mind. But I tried and tried and..

Well;

Firecrest!

 Much prettier than any Chiffchaff. Also a lot easier to track through assorted bushes and reeds...

See what I mean?

Unlike a grey-brown two-tone job,

It even called.

:)

In the classic pose, even*.
Now, I'm almost certain there were two birds present, on account of them looking a bit different, despite never seeing them at the same time. Also as you will see, at least two and possibly 3 regular flavour Chiffies, which really did not look the same through optics, let alone eyes, but were horribly close as a moving blur through a viewfinder..
I did say it was all fun and games, didn't I?

Inevitably most shots were;

"Niet, I am Reed Warbler"

Nice try.
Nice pose, though!

Eyeing up another midge

Why is it the regular collybita ones that strike poses for you?

Australian race

Firecrests are much easier

Shooting the more open ground birds would have involved aiming right into the rain, which would have been a bit counter-productive, so none of them. But you can look back to 'Mud' to see Cirls in overcast gloom, can't you?

While the land was quite busy, the sea was a Shag only zone. Ho hum.


I had thought about heading on to Brixham to try for white wingers, but the weather was so urgh that I figured I'd not be able to see any even if they were there...

Oh well.


Be Seeing You...

[[*See The Artist's twitter for the same pose but closer and without the twigs..]]

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...]]