Extreme Digiscoping

Dale and I did the WeBS count today over the high tide. Pretty much all the waders were roosting at Flow Point so I had a pretty boring time at Passage House. Just two Common Sandpipers, two Kingfishers, seven Little Grebe, 21 Lapwing, three Greenshank and a Shag to keep me entertained. At Flow, Dale had nine Ringed Plover, 93 Redshank, 25 Shelduck, 15 Red-breasted Merganser, 334 Oystercatchers, 74 Curlew, and a further four Greenshank. There was a total of ten Little Egrets on the estuary.

Next, we went to Shaldon to have a look at the sea. From Ness Cove looking south, there was a flock of about 15 Great-crested Grebe and a few auks flying south. A look out north from The Ness Hotel revealed some better birds. A Great Northern Diver was feeding close in off the mouth of the estuary, a Red-throated Diver flew south, and another one was sat on the sea off towards Dawlish.

Dale dropped me back off at Passage House on the way back, so I had a quick look for Snipe along the edges of the reeds. There were none, but I did pick up a pipit sp. feeding along the edge of the saltmarsh. I saw a similar looking pipit in the same place about a month ago, but wasn't sure then either. Looking at the scale on google maps, it looks like the pipit was at least 300m away, so a long way! Now this is where the extreme digiscoping bit comes in. I've found that I can get quite a lot more detail on birds if I digiscope with my superzoom camera. My scope was on 50x and the camera on about 30x, so the combined magnification is going to be pretty high! Here are the results...

Not bad for a small bird at 300m I think!

You can see that the underparts appear quite light, there is a bit of a supercilium, the beak looks a bit yellowish, and the legs appear a bit pinky orange.

Possibly a Water Pipit, or a littoralis Rock Pipit? Although it looks a bit mipity in the photos, it definitely wasn't one. Are there any pipit experts out there?