Hoopoe

 Hoopoe - one of very few migrants on Orcombe Point this morning.

An atypically productive spell of birding this mornning in Exmouth. A thirty-five minute sea-watch from the raised beach huts from 0620 produced 7 Sandwich Terns, 4 Red-throated Divers, 10 Common Scoters,  7 Lesser Black-backed Gulls and an 'in off' Kestrel. 

Orcombe Point - 1 Hoopoe, 6 Chiffchaffs, 15+ Meadow Pipits, 20 Dark-bellied Brent Geese, 5 Chaffinches, 2 Blackcaps and 1 male Cirl Bunting.

Maer Valley - 2 Black Redstarts (male and female), 1 Redwing, 2 Little Egrets and 8 Ring-necked Parakeets.

Mudbank was  inexplicably good too with a flock of 23 Sandwich Terns, 11 Pale-bellied Brent Geese, 1 Red Kite and a singing Willow Warbler. Also off there - 121 Curlew, 1 Knot, 2 Grey Plovers, 14+ Redshank, 22 Wigeon,  4 Canada Geese, 3 Red-breasted Mergansers, 3 Great Crested Grebes and 1 Peregrine. A steady procession of Lesser Black-backed Gulls headed upriver. I really wish I'd counted them!

This is only the second one I've seen in Exmouth. The first turned up in John and Marie Wilson's garden in Foxholes back in August 2017. It's also only the second one I've found, the first being way back in April 2001 on the Teign estuary.