Redwings

About a dozen Redwing feeding on Holly berries at the end of our road. I managed to spend a short while watching and photographing them in the last few minutes of daylight. Lightly marked beneath so Scandanavian birds rather than Icelandics. One of my favourite birds.

 

 

Windy

Dawn - looking out from Maer Rocks. Good numbers of Gannet in the bay but little else.

Not too much to report today but great to be out and about in the windy weather. I love Exmouth on stormy days. Highlights were 18+ Common Scoter off Maer Rocks, a Red-throated Diver off the docks, before flying in to the estuary, a Pale-bellied Brent Goose in the 'Gut' and a Guillemot in the marina - present for its third day.

Redshank - Mudbank

Pale-bellied Brent Goose

Turnstone - Shelly Beach

Guillemot - Exmouth Marina

Mudbank

 

Greenshank - Mudbank

 

Some nice bits of pieces off Mudbank and some decent counts. Totals included the wintering Long-tailed Duck, 4 Goldeneye (all female types) a Guillemot paddling purposefully upriver (probably the individual that Terry saw in the marina yesterday afternoon), 230+ Pintail (the highest number I've had for some time), 1 Greenshank, c120+ Redshank, c100+ Dunlin, several Turnstone, 7+ Ringed Plover, 35 Grey Plover, 3 Knot, 10+ Great Crested Grebe, 4 Pale-bellied Brent Goose, 4 Teal, 12+ Red-breasted Merganser, several Wigeon, a few Shelduck and Brent Geese and a Kingfisher.

 

 

 

Dunlin - one of a number off Mudbank today.

 

Drake Red-breasted Merganser - Mudbank

 

Pintail - great to see 230+ gathered off Mudbank today.

Chasing Crossbills

 

Dawn on Bicton Common - below Woodbury Common.

 

Nick and I were on Bicton Common for dawn yesterday, hoping to find Crossbills. Within about 10 minutes we had three fly over, but their calls were a bit different - a bit deep! All three headed towards the plantation at the bottom of Woodbury Common so we gave chase. An hour or two later we'd drawn a blank. I managed to get back up there in the afternoon and I eventually located a feeding flock of eight birds, but I couldn't get anything on them before they flew off 'chupping' as they went. Again the calls sounded interesting but I'm not at all familiar with Parrot Crossbill calls.

Nick and I tried the plantation again this morning but we could only find ones and twos of Crossbills, all just flyovers and all sounding Common Crossbill-like.

The plantation in question is the rectangular plantation below Woodbury Common (it's actually part of Bicton Common) called Upham's Plantation, accessed from the road down to Yettington - the next carpark down from the model aircrafraft carpark.

Other species recorded up there this weekend include, c100+ Linnet, 100+ Pied Wagtail (over to roost site somewhere), 8+ Dartford Warbler, c20+ Brambling, c5/10+ Siskin, c10+ Redpoll, 3+ Mistle Thrush, c20/30+ Redwing, 7+ Fieldfare, c5+ Bullfinch, 2+ Reed Bunting and c20+ Goldcrest.

 

 

Fieldfare

Big Brambling Count

 

Woodbury Fort was heaving with finches this afternoon. I reckon c200+ Brambling (just 4 in the above photo) and c150/200+ Chaffinch but it wouldn't surprise me if there were more. As well as a big flock exploding off the forest floor, there was a seemingly endless movement of birds through the tree tops and the majority of calls I was hearing were of Brambling, not Chaffinch. Also 8+ Redpoll, Nuthatch, 2+ Redwing and a number of Coal Tit.

 

Off Maer Rocks this morning were the regular 13 Common Scoter, female-type Eider and 1 Red-throated Diver. Counts off Mudbank included 112+ Pintail, 5 Teal, 2 Gadwall, 2 Greenshank, c130+ Redshank, 9 Grey Plover, 11 Sanderling, 8+ Pale-bellied Brent Goose, 3 Goldeneye, 9+ Great Crested Grebe, the regular Long-tailed Duck, 9+ Red-breasted Merganser, 2 Bar-tailed Godwit, 1 Peregrine, 1 Kingfisher, 1 Reed Bunting and 2+ Meadow Pipit.

Off Shelly Beach - 2 Great Northern Diver, 1 Slavonian Grebe, 19+ Ringed Plover, 1 Black-tailed Godwit and 1 Kingfisher.

 

Kingfisher - Shelly Beach

 

Little Egret - Shelly Beach

This Week's Exmouth Stuff

 

Common Gull - Mudbank

 

Maer Rocks today - 13 Common Scoter, 1 Eider, 3 Dark-bellied Brent Goose, 6+ Turnstone, 1 Little Egret and at least 7 Purple Sandpiper. Off Mudbank there was a good count 0f 110+ Redshank and c2/300+ Dunlin. Also 3 Grey Plover, 3+ Black-tailed Godwit, 4 Red-breasted Merganser, 25+ Little Egret, 1 Kingfisher, 4 Pale-bellied Brent Goose and 1 Greenshank, as well as the usual stuff.

Yesterday there was a Red-throated Diver off Maer Rocks, along with the 13 Common Scoter. The Maer carpark held a female Blackcap and 6 Redwing.

On the 23rd there was a single Great Northern Diver off Maer Rocks and on the 21st an early evening look off Maer Rocks produced a skua sp which was almost certainly a Pom, 10 Common Scoter, 1 Eider, 3 Purple Sandpiper, 2 Dark-bellied Brent Goose and 1 Little Egret.

 

Pintail

Purple Sandpiper - Maer Rocks - at least 7 on the rocks this afternoon.

Selected Counts

Guillemot - Maer Rocks

 

Maer Rocks - 1 Eider, 10 Common Scoter, 1 Great Crested Grebe, 1 Guillemot, 7 Turnstone, 7 Purple Sandpiper, 1 Sanderling and 1 Rock Pipit.

Mudbank - a high count of 23+ Great Crested Grebe, 1 Long-tailed Duck, 3 Goldeneye, c60+ Redshank, 13 Black-tailed Godwit, 140+ Shelduck, 2 Teal, 1 Kingfisher, 1 Reed Bunting, 2 Pale-bellied Brent Goose and good numbers of Wigeon, Brent Goose and Pintail.

Pintail

Common Gull