Wood Sand & Marsh Harrier Linger

An evening visit to Black Hole Marsh & the Axe Estuary showed nothing new of interest. The juvenile Marsh Harrier was still present and I heard a vocal Wood Sandpiper calling from BHM. Sure enough it flew in front of Tower Hide a few seconds later and landed out on the estuary. I knew it was on it's way - their call is incredibly distinctive (and very pleasant too)! Other Tim had arrived at Tower Hide too and hadn't yet seen the Wood Sand so we were both pretty fortunate that it landed out on the estuary as it had only been showing distantly on BHM until that point. Tim has spent more time looking around Colyton than Seaton lately and reports that things have been typically quiet, although he did have an Otter on the Coly. I've seen dozens of Mink locally but never an Otter. One day...

It's abundantly clear that the tourist season is now in full swing; there have been a lot of family groups down the marshes recently. It's always nice to hear how impressed people are with the wetlands here; in fact it's unusual not to hear praise of some kind from the large numbers of visitors. This does mean that space in the hides has been hard to come by at times, but at least people are out enjoying the facilities & the wildlife. There was a young lad with his grandparents in Tower Hide late in the evening - he was trying to take photos of every species he could see. He was amazed when I pointed out a Kingfisher to him (quite reliable here at the moment) and he took a few snaps - this reminded me of me a bit as Kingfishers on the Coly is what got me into all this about 14 years ago... He was so interested & enthusiastic - great to see!