New area explored

A tour of several sites around the estuary this morning began with a visit to Decoy Lake, which turned up adult and juvenile Great Crested Grebes and two Tufted Ducks. Next stop was Flow Point for the high tide roost; Oystercatchers (378) and Curlew (90+) were plentiful but numbers of other waders disappointing - 3 Greenshanks, 2 Common Sandpipers, 4 Ringed Plovers and a Dunlin (the latter two species were into double figures this time last year). Nine Turnstones were roosting on a covered boat at Polly Steps, Teignmouth, and single Wheatears were noted here and at Flow Point.

I ended up exploring the back lanes behind Shaldon, namely Commons Lane which rises up steeply from Ringmore and is lined with dense, species-rich hedgerows. No sooner had I parked up that a female/juvenile Redstart flew across the road; an overdue patch tick for me. The area looks good for warblers and other passerines during migration.

Yesterday late afternoon a dozen or so Sandwich Terns and a Mediterranean Gull were off Teignmouth seafront, where six Bottlenose Dolphins passed a short while before I arrived (thanks Ken).

Ringed Plovers, Dunlin and Wheatear - Flow Point

Arctic Skuas

I managed a fairly short seawatch at Teignmouth this morning from 06:45-08:15. Despite the strengthening onshore breeze most birds were a very long way out, including good numbers of "commic" Terns which attracted the attention of three Arctic Skuas. Seven shearwater sp. bombed their way south, barely dots on the horizon, with only one coming close enough to be ID'd as a Manx. Passing somewhat closer to land were a juvenile Mediterranean Gull, two Common Scoters and four Sandwich Terns.

More waders

Combined totals from Passage House and Flow Point this morning included 386 Oystercatchers, 105 Curlew, 6 Whimbrel, 5 Greenshanks, 7 Dunlin, 6 Ringed Plovers, 4 Common Sandpipers and the first Black-tailed Godwit of the autumn.

Big increase in Oystercatchers

Not a great deal of quality around the estuary on a gloriously sunny Thursday afternoon but numbers of certain waders are continuing to increase. A total of 280 Oystercatchers were strung out along the embankment east of Flow Point at high tide, a figure not far off the mid-winter average. The Curlew flock broke three figures with 106 at Passage House before some dispersed to Flow Point as the tide peaked, joined by 3 Whimbrel. Other counts included 8 Dunlin, just 4 Common Sandpipers, 2 Redshanks, 89 Little Egrets, 44 Mute Swans, 27 Shelducks, 25 Cormorants, two Sandwich Terns and singles of Great Crested and Little Grebe.

Earlier in the morning a brief look at the racecourse revealed a mixed flock of c.100 Swallows and House Martins, and two Common Sandpipers were under Town Quay Bridge.

Increase in Common Sandpipers

It's that time of year again when large numbers of Common Sandpipers build up on the estuary. A total of 15 were around the site with the majority on the spit at Passage House. The last couple of times I've been on the train along the estuary I've also seen three or four flushed from the estuary wall between Flow Point and Teignmouth, so the count for the estuary as a whole could be up to 20.

Otherwise, it was much the same, however three juvenile Mediterranean Gulls gave me something nice to look at as they flew in and circled around Passage House before landing amongst the gull flock.

I'm off to Turkey tomorrow and won't be back for two weeks, but I'll leave you with some photos from today...

Common Sandpiper

Little Egret

Holly Blue

More Meds and darvic BHGs

There was horse racing on again today which meant there were high numbers of Black-headed Gulls at Passage House, c400+. With them were just two Mediterranean Gulls, an adult and a juvenile, the adult being a different bird to Friday's.

UPDATE - only just noticed this, but the BHG in front of the Med is also wearing a ring. Top letter looks like an F so could well be another new bird, but hard to tell!

A look through the closer Black-headed Gulls proved worthwhile with two darvic ringed birds, which for a brief while were in the same scope view! One of them was white 27J1 which I first found on the 6th July. This bird was ringed as a chick at a breeding colony just south east of Reading, Berkshire in 2011. It was seen on the Otter Estuary later that year, and was seen back at the breeding site in April 2013.

The other bird was was new in - black A3S3. I very nearly missed this ring. I scanned past it, but then thought, "hang on, did I just see a ring on that bird?!" It seems as if this bird was ringed in Germany, but I'll update when I get a reply.

I find digiscoping invaluable for reading rings. If there's no heat haze I reckon I can get twice as much detail as just looking through the scope. It also allows you to analyze the ring on the computer when you get home in case the ring was at an awkward angle meaning only part of the code was visible, as was the case with the black ringed bird.

White 27J1

Black A3S3

Not an obvious juv YLG

Yesterday there were plenty of gulls to look through at Passage House. After about 10 minutes of scanning I came across a gull that immediately looked a lot different to the juvenile Herring Gulls which where in good numbers...

It was long legged, long winged, had a fairly large angular beak, a dark eye mask, and dark bases to the greater coverts. It was also noticeably larger in overall size than the nearby Herrings. These features all pointed towards it being a juvenile Yellow-legged Gull, however there were two things that were bugging me. The tertials had more notching than you'd expect, and there seemed to be a bit too much spotting on the inner greater coverts. Also, the scapulars perhaps aren't as dark as they are on some birds. I got a few glimpses of the tail and the open wings but failed to get a good shot of them.

It eventually took off and gave me good views of the clean white rump and dark inner primaries, although again I couldn't get a good shot.

I would appreciate some more opinions on this bird. My own opinion (not that I'm a gull expert - far from it!) is that it is a Yellow-legged Gull. I just can't see it being a juvenile Herring Gull, but I suppose it's possible that it's a hybrid.

Other birds present were an adult Mediterranean Gull, two Greenshank, 11 Redshank, five Common Sandpipers, two Whimbrel, 88 Curlew and one Dunlin.

In other wildlife news, this Hornet Hoverfly was near Aller Brook.

Volucella zonaria

It even landed on my hand!

Dragonflies

Bird news first - Will saw a female Goosander on Sunday swimming down river from Newton Abbot Town Quay, and yesterday I had a flock of c15 Manx Shearwaters off Shaldon.

On Decoy Lake today there were three juvenile and two adult Great Crested Grebes and a Siskin flew over.

I spent a while at Magazine Pond looking for dragonflies. All photos were digiscoped.

Black-tailed Skimmer

Common Darter

Copulating Common Darters

Ovipositing Emperor Dragonfly

WeBS count and Mandarin

Due to Sunday commitments I did the WeBS count a day early and was joined by Laurie. We started by viewing Passage House from the bottom of Hackney Lane where a couple of noisy Sandwich Terns were flying about, 46 Mute Swans was a good count and the first returning Kingfisher was present. We next moved to Flow Point where a mixed group of waders comprised 80 Curlew, 18 Oystercatchers, two Dunlin and singles of Greenshank and Whimbrel. Four more Sandwich Terns were mixed in with the roosting Black-headed Gulls, although we failed to find any Med Gulls. Other totals from around the estuary included 36 Little Egrets, 22 Canada Geese, 9 Cormorants, 7 Shelducks, 10 Mallards and five Common Sandpipers.

We parted company at Passage House, with Laurie returning home via the new footbridge over the Teign where he found this Mandarin:

The first summer Med

There was a good gathering of 200+ Black-headed Gulls roosting at Passage House over high tide today, mainly due to it being race day on the racecourse where they would normally roost. On my third scan through them I found the first Mediterranean Gull of the summer, a 1st summer. Luckily it came close enough for some photos...

This is where I first found it...

Why not test your Med finding skills - zoom in and let me know if you can see it!

And here's a picture of the Green Sandpiper in the quarry - my first for the patch. Looking back at the WeBS records there were a few at Passage House during the 60s and 70s with a maximum count of 13 in August of 1974! After this though, the species has become very rare locally, and the only other recent record is a bird that Kev heard calling over Newton Abbot.

Very slender