Dawlish warren

A great day down on the warren watched from 09:15 till 16:00 A little stint on the beach with a group of 47 sanderling and 5 Dunlin was a good find then turned my attention to the sea with a summer plumage great northern diver not far out and the first 2 storm petrels drifting south Made way to the sea wall and watched from the life guard hut with Ivan and later stan for a few hours resulted in the following totals 76+ storm petrels all south my best Devon count, 3 great northern divers, 3 pomarine skuas, 1 arctic skua, 38+ Manx shearwaters, 1 or 2 little tern, 1 guillemot, 6 great crested grebes, and a pod of 8+ bottlenose dolphins right in close to the seawall and still in bay just before I left. A cracking day

Downend(Saunton Down)

07:25 - 08:30

15 Common Scoter flying north towards Baggy Point.

Thurlestone Bay

On Thursday made 2 attempts to do some sea watching - only picked up  around 200 Gannet, 17 Kittiwake,
2 Manx Shearwater, 3 Fulmar- main problem was the very poor viz ( c250 yds ) and no shelter , scope unusable.

This morning dry conditions but very few birds , however at 09.10 a Storm Petrel came into the Bay and fed offshore less than 50 yds away.

Beer

Seawatch from 05:00 - 08:00 was very disappointing. Apart from a trickle of Gannets, the only birds noted were 1 Storm Petrel, 3 Great Northern Divers, 15 Manx Shearwaters, 8 Common Scoter, a couple of auk sp. and a handful of Kittiwakes. A flock of 20+ small waders zipped through also - looked like a mix of Dunlin and Sanderling.

David Walters and the Axe Estuary Birds Newsletter

Many readers of this blog probably subscribe to the 'Axe Estuary Birds Newsletter', compiled and published by David Walters, so Mike Lock has suggested posting the following note...


David Walters has had a slight stroke which has made it impossible for him to continue to prepare the Axe Estuary Birds Newsletter, and he has decided to discontinue it. However, I am looking into the possibility of finding an alternative editor so that this valuable newsletter can continue.

with best wishes

Mike Lock

Saunton Down

A late morning watch from the point here only showed about 25 Manx Shearwaters and a Fulmar in an hour. So not exactly thrilling, but the sea was impressive!

Exminster Marshes

Drier this morning but still very windy. The nearest I could get to the sea watching excitement were several house martins impersonating storm petrels amongst the waves on the water storage lagoon. Elsewhere there were lots of house martins and only a few swifts. Water levels are high with no exposed mud, so few waders - only the long staying single black-tailed godwit and avocet. Ducks included 49 shelduck, 5 gadwall, one tufted duck, one male wigeon and c30 mallard including recently fledged young.

Exmouth

Lifeboat Station - 0515 - 0900 - 4 great northern diver, 1 sum plum black-throated diver (flew in from east at 0525 and landed, still sat on sea 0815 at least), c30+ fulmar, 6+ manx shearwater, 8 common scoter, 5+ storm petrel, 1 whimbrel, 1+ dunlin, 2+ sanderling, 15+ common tern, 2+ guillemot. Also several gannets, kittiwakes and a few sandwich terns.
Yesterday - 5 little tern off seafront and later off Mudbank with 1 pale-bellied brent goose still and 8+ great crested grebe.

Dawlish warren

After work made way over to Dawlish Warren and watched from 15:15 till 19:55 from beside the life guard hut on the sea wall

Turned out to be a Tern afternoon but the first birds were 2 Arctic Skuas close in a good start then 2 storm petrels soon followed again fairly close in , around 18:20 a Black tern made slow progress south into the gale force south west wind with 5 common terns then around 19:30 a group of terns flew out from exmouth mostly common terns but at the back 2 Roseate terns was a good find to end the day

Final totals for the afternoon were 3 storm petrels, 3 arctic skuas, 1 great skua, 2 roseate terns, 1 black tern, 6+ arctic terns,35+ common terns, 15+ sandwich terns , 32+ commic terns , 4 common scoter, 4 great crested grebes, 1 guillemot, 76+ manx shearwater.

A very good afternoon

Berry Head

Sooty Shearwater

The day's final totals: 05:15-18:00: 2 Pomarine Skuas, 4 Arctic Skuas, 4 Bonxies, 2 Sooty Shearwaters, 3 Balearic Shearwaters, 2360 Manx Shearwaters, 6  Storm Petrels, 51 Puffins, Great Northern Diver,  12 Common Terns, 7 Sandwich Terns. 3 Harbour Porpoise, Grey Seal, Ocean Sunfish.

ML,MD,IL.DMN, SS,TB

I missed Mike's Macaronesian Shearwater (see below) by 7 minutes!!! But could not have been found by a more deserving seawatcher - well done. This one's been along time coming as a Berry Head (or Devon) seawatched bird.



We hoped it might come back around for a second showing given the strong winds and rain, but alas it was not to be.

Exmouth and Budleigh Salterton

Exmouth
Taking respite from the appalling weather in one of the shelters on the front, I could scope the birds sitting out the high tide/conditions at the end of Dawlish Warren. An impressive 250+ oystercatchers, 2 sanderling, 50+ dunlin, 7 turnstone, 6 ringed plover, 4 common terns, 7 sandwich terns, a single black headed gull and 5 arctic terns flew out of the estuary and close to the sea wall.
Budleigh Salterton
Sea watching from 12.30 until 3.15 p.m resulted in 4 storm petrels, 15 guillemot, 12 fulmar, 16 kittiwake, 3 commic terns, 2 arctic skuas, 30 manx shearwater and 1 sooty shearwater

Berry Hd

Little Shearwater - presumed Barolo's moved south at 0545hrs with Manxies and fed for a short time before moving off slowly south again with the Manx Shearwaters. Despite looking really hard for the whitish/silvery greater covert patch there was no sign of it, that part of the wing was uniformly black with rest of wing, notes here:
 

Sadly no one present at the time to share the sighting with.

Other birds from 0515 -10.30: 1140 Manx Shearwaters, 1 Baleric Shearwater, 1 Sooty Shearwater, 5 Storm Petrels,  2 Pomarine Skuas  including close 3rd cal year bird, 3 Arctic Skuas, 1 Bonxie and 29 Puffins. Also 1 Ocean Sunfish and at least 2 Harbour Porpoises.

Update: Fascinating link from Chris Townend: http://peteralfreybirdingnotebook.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/barolos-marconesian-shearwater.html

Brixham

Walking back from Berry Head, Hobby flying low over Burton Street, Brixham. Must add an amazing count of Bee Orchid this evening with a total of 141 spikes around the site.

Hollowmoor,Highampton

12 crossbills flew over eastwards, mid-morning.

Exminster Marshes

Another wet morning. At least 3 Med gulls with c100 black-headed gulls on the pool nearest to the canal-side car park. Otherwise 9 little egrets, 1 black-tailed godwit and the avocet.

Yesterday evening at about 10.30 pm two flocks of waders flew on to the marshes from the estuary. Together about 120 birds, it was too dark to identify them but they looked about whimbrel size and I could hear whimbrel calls. Interestingly this was after high tide and the water was falling, so did they just arrive or had been disturbed from a high tide roost elsewhere on the estuary. No sign this morning at high water.

Thurlestone Bay

Very quiet weekend  took me some time on Monday  morning to realise a passage of Swift was moving through - 105 north in less than an hour.

Tuesday morning only a very wet Whimbrel on South Huish Marsh . What a change  this evening ., went down to the bay at 16.30 - the next 105 mins produced -

70 Gannet, 88 Manx Shearwater, 7 Fulmar, 12 Kittiwake, 6 Sandwich Tern, 1 Razorbill + 7 Auks. . a Great Skua flew east at 17.35

Dawlish warren

Seawatch from 09:35 till 12:40 Wet and windy but worth it with 2 arctic skuas Coming in close to the sea wall by the life guard hut one pale phase and one dark phase and 5 common terns, also 18 Manx shearwater, 26+ sandwich terns, 9+ commic terns, 35+ gannets, 13+ fulmars and several groups of kittiwakes all heading south west, 3 guillemots and a great crested grebe.

Spoonbill - Exminster Marshes

Yesterday the Spoonbill was beside the lagoon near the canal car park until about 11-15 when it took off, circled higher and higher over the marshes and eventually flew towards Haldon where I lost it to view.

Exminster Marshes

Brief visit this morning in very wet and cold conditions. It didn't feel like June. Maybe the ibis and spoonbill had similar reservations about the weather and moved on. The ibis left shortly after 9.00 yesterday and the spoonbill was not seen yesterday evening although it was present in the morning, at about 11.00 am.

The rain has filled the pools to the benefit of the waterfowl including - 4 tufted duck, 2 gadwall, 2 teal, 2 wigeon, c20 mallard and lots of shelduck (c35). A few waders were on the pool close to the canal-side car park - 1 dunlin (2 yesterday evening both sp), 1 black-tailed godwit (sp), 1 avocet and 2 lapwings.

Flocks of swallows, house martins, swifts and a few sand martins were busy feeding in the lee of any trees. Roll on summer.

Exminster Marsh

A walk around early afternoon produced 2 Hobby's, sitting around on posts. No sign of the Spoonbill, though I understand it was present earlier in the day. And the Glossy Ibis appears to have gone too, seen over Dawlish at 9.45 flying SE.