A quick visit this morning produced 1 female merlin and peregrine along station road,60+ golden plover, 2 snipe, water rail and the water pipit.
After getting some bits done in town managed to get back to the marsh and watched from 14:30 till 18:00, walked along the path beside the railway out to turf and had 1 ruff, the peregrine attacked the wigeon but failed, 32 golden plover, lots of wigeon and Brent geese, 1 sparrowhawk over high towards topsham, lapwings spread all over the marsh, 5 Greylag. At turf the slavonian grebe along with 2 great crested grebes and 5 red breasted mergansers. Walked back along the cannal path on the lagoon 10 tufted duck, 3 pochard and 4 gadwall then at 16:34 the hen harrier drifted over exminster and behind powderham marshes, walked back down station road by the s bends a water rail showed briefley and the peregrine flew over again. Just before the railway bridge scaned across the marsh towards the motorway bridge and found a male merlin sat on a post and managed to watch it for about 15 mins. Also had 3 cetti's warblers and 12+ reed buntings and 2 buzzards around the marsh
At lunch time had the dipper on my local patch at the mill on the exe and a patch tick with a male shoveler
Another good day on the marshes
