Isabelline Wheatear & White-tailed Eagle

What a gorgeous wee bird!

Boxing Day was such a superb birding day on patch here with the Isabelline Wheatear continuing to show well, a visit from a White-tailed Eagle, as well as a flyover Great White Egret. There have been triple figures of people visiting us here for the Wheatear, with a plethora of pics appearing all over social media. You can't blame the photographers (or birders or twitchers) for coming for this one, it was both rare and very, very obliging. I crouched down on the boardwalk and waited, and the Wheatear duly hopped towards me, within perhaps 20-25ft at times. It gave a similar feeling to the incredulous views of the 1st Least Sand we had on Black Hole Marsh back in 2016.

With there being so many pics of this bird already doing the rounds online, I made a conscious effort to try and get something different, if possible. A flight shot was an outside hope because as much as we like to get them, they're just so difficult. Something a little more likely was a shot with streaks of rain, something I have a soft spot for in wildlife images (but preferably not my astro stuff...).

These 2 are by far & away my favourite images from the day:

And a very, very distant shot of the White-tailed Eagle. Bun (Kevin Hale) first saw what he thought might be a WT Eagle in flight over the other side of the river but views were distant and brief. He described where he thought it had gone in and I set my scope up on the area. This did show a blob of a bird, but it was just too distant for my 50x eyepiece and no amount of squinting or good eyesight was going to help any of us. Fortunately the camera was a bit more useful, and the very few pixels that were actually on the bird did seem to show it was likely an Eagle; I stuck my neck out and said to the crowd that I was 95% sure it was one. Half an hour or so later it flew and at that point there was no doubt at all. We've had a few passes of WT Eagle over the patch now, but this was the 1st time I've managed to see one, so cheers for initially spotting it Kev!

2 Garganey, Hobby, Pec Sand & Osprey

I hate how sparse my blogging has been over recent years but if I ever only worked 100 hours per week, I'd genuinely consider it part time 😂

On September 1st, in terrible light, and very distant, I had 3 small ducks fly in and park up on the Axe estuary. My immediate hunch was 2 Garganey and a Teal, so I alerted the others in the hide. Some umm-ing and ahh-ing later and the scope & bin views just weren't good enough, but fortunately the camera revealed more, especially when they came a bit closer, 400 ft or so (but DARK). Bang on, 2 Garganey and a teal! I've found quite a few Garganey here over the years, but these were the first that were properly hard work. Hobby was nice to see that same evening, my 1st of the year I think; pretty poor, but birding time has been poor so...

Roll on the 9th, my birthday! An alert went out about a Pectoral Sandpiper at Colyford Common so I quickly popped over for a look before going to work (late...). Got it, in the drizzle, but got it. No sensible pics but I was just glad to see another one here. Keen to have another try after work, I headed back there in the evening, but before I could check the waders, an Osprey approached and flushed everything...

Pec and Osprey, happy birthday!

Spoonbill at Black Hole Marsh

The decent year for (locally) scarce birds on patch continues! Spoonbills are more or less annual on patch, some years none, some years more than one (like this year), and always a joy to see. I had Black Hole Marsh entirely to myself when I saw this beauty drop in.

At dusk a lot more birds came in to BHM, including 14+ Whimbrel and 2 Bar-tailed Godwits.

Green-winged Teal finally shows nicely

 ...but only for a few seconds. It was on the pool by the Discovery Hut, which is the area I thought it went down in when it flew from Black Hole Marsh on the 18th. 

25th - I had a gorgeous sum plum Barwit on Black Hole Marsh which was joined by a 2nd on 27th

26th - a Cattle Egret flew SW over Seaton, 3 Whimbrel on the estuary

28th - a decidedly less attractive Barwit joined 1 of the 2 sum plum birds

29th - 2 Barwits (1 sum plum), 5 Whimbrel and 3 Ringos

Taken after the Sun went down when most people would have long packed up the camera gear!

Green-winged Teal at Black Hole Marsh

I thought I'd missed my chance with the GW Teal on Bridge Marsh on 8th April (I was working), but rather unexpectedly it flew in through the rain and landed on BHM early evening today! I'm not aware of any other sightings between the 8th and now but it's likely the same bird and has presumably been staying somewhere local-ish. It flew in from north of BHM with 3 Teal and landed quite a way off... It didn't linger long and after it flew, a further 90 mins of searching didn't turn it up again either. It was nice to get a few other people onto it as well at least.

Poor pics due to distance, but great to see nonetheless.

White-winged surprise over my garden!

Glaucous Gull is definitely not something I was expecting to see over the garden today! I had my binoculars and (small) camera handy whilst I was working on my astro equipment outside, and it was just as well that I did. A scarce bird locally, and only the second I've seen on patch. It really did put a smile on my face, it just wasn't something I was expecting to see from home. I've had a few Meds over before, and a probable Iceland Gull over town (we had one on the Axe the following morning so the 'probable' became extremely likely), but still, a very nice surprise indeed!

Poor pics, but I care not.

There were reports of a WT Eagle over Beer at 16:25 on Tuesday, but before I was aware of this, I had a large bird flying high, away from me over Colyton at 16:48-16:50. I had my arms full of daughter, no bins, no underside view of the bird to show any diagnostic shape, but it was big, and the gulls were not impressed. I hope the GPS data gets released and shows that the bird I had heading NNE was not the eagle... Still not seen one, and want to see one properly when it does eventually happen.

Cattle Egrets in Colyton

We've had a few Cattle Egrets frequenting Colyton for quite a while now, numbering up to 5 on occasion. They've been relatively obliging at times, primarily using the same 4 fields. I expect the novelty will somewhat wear off with these in the next few years, but I do rather like them (especially the 2 full breeding plumage birds I had last year)!

Birding time has been a bit sparse lately, as has time to eat or sleep. Having both Delta & Omicron in the house within 4 weeks of each other wasn't ideal either, especially with a 1 year old. 

Roll on Spring.