That Tern

Well I cannot be the author of a blog about the birds of the Axe Estuary area and not mention a certain Tern...

A Lesser Crested Tern has spent four days on the Exe Estuary, well today is its fifth day. A cracking rarity and not at a time of year you might expect to see one!  However, on a local level there is galling foreword to its appearance on the Exe...

Monday of last week was absolutely shocking, especially in the afternoon with strong rain and heavy winds.  I was stuck in work, but Mike B braved the elements and was watching the pre-roosting gulls pile in to the river valley. They were all clearly reluctant to head out to sea where they usually roost due to the shocking conditions.  

At just before 4pm when it was already fairly dark, amongst a huge swirl of Black-headed Gulls over Black Hole Marsh, Mike had a few seconds glimpse of a tern sp., a large tern sp. with a large and colourful bill. I gave it some effort the following morning, looking along the Estuary and spent quite some time looking over the sea, but to no avail. 

I have to be honest, I was sure it was going to turn out to be a Royal Tern if it did reappear anywhere, Mike thought it has a reddish bill which supported that not to mention the late date, however, presumably Lesser Crested it was!  Obviously we cannot be absolutely certain, and the record will be a near-miss for the patch, however we all know what we have missed here, a truly incredible record.  Gutting.  Well done though Mike, just-reward for being out in such grim conditions!

So, what have I seen... Well lots of water in the valley yesterday, and it was good to see a bit of an increase in wintering bird numbers with more Lapwing and Wigeon around, as well as two Egyptian Geese which later became four.  I found nothing of note in the gulls that were around yesterday, but they have revealed some goodies during the previous few days...

Best of all was this lovely first-winter Caspian Gull off Coronation Corner on Friday 5th, first seen by Phil about half an hour earlier further up-river...

Well I wanted a more classic-looking Casp - and boy did I get it!

  

So white!

Such a striking secondary bar, and legs that went on forever!

A better albeit less sharp image of its upperwing. Feather-perfect.

It looked just as good on dry land as it was a big long-necked bird, standing as tall as the two Great Black-backed Gulls either side of this shot

 

There was another bird present that caught my interest, in fact it hung around all day distracting me as its ID wasn't immediately apparent.  It was a third-winter bird that was giving off Caspian-vibes at the same time as clearly not being a Caspian Gull.  Having shared the photos with other, Herring x Caspian hybrid has been suggested, and seems a good suggestion to me, although I did wonder whether Lesser Black-backed was in the mix somewhere considering its overall size and structure and leg and mantle colour...

Quite a dark mantle and very washed out pale yellow legs

The gull in the water

Some open-wing action

 

The other gull worthy of note from the previous week was this second-winter Yellow-legged Gull.  It remained distant but was a really chunky bird...

Right of the post, with Herring behind to compare mantle colour with and two Great Black-backs to the side to compare its size to!

Hard to judge mantle colour here in the bright sunshine, but structure and head and bill shape shows well.  It's the bird just to the right of the second-winter Herring Gull with the pale-tipped bill on the far left of this picture at mid-height.

At least one Lesser Whitethroat is still present in Seaton, although I wouldn't be surprised if both were still present as it's been a bit windy to get a proper handle on them lately.  I have got some nice sound clips, there are just some more photos I want to try and capture before I write a more detailed post on them. Hopefully I'll acheive this before the end of the year, but it ultimately depends on how helpful the birds prove!

 

Lesser Whitethroats and Gulls

Clive found a couple of Lesser Whitethroats yesterday morning, right in the centre of Seaton around the Bowling Green.  I was very pleased to spend some time with one of them this morning, and this post was going to be all about them, however later on today I went gulling...

The Lesser Whitethroat post will happen, and truthfully it's not just the gulls that have delayed it.  I want to spend more time with them and hopefully get some more photos and maybe even some sound recordings, before constructing a blog post. The question I want to try and answer is how far north/east have they originated from?  So do check back soon...just not too soon as I want to gather as much detail as I can.  

I managed to squeeze in a look along the Estuary at about 3pm today. Not huge numbers of gulls present but one of the first birds I saw at the southern end of the Estuary was this second-winter Caspian Gull.  On structure not a big bird at all, and any Casp lacking the usual impressive Casp stature worries me, especially when its a second-winter lacking a P10 window.  It still looked pretty smart though...

Bottom right - the one with a snowball for a head!

 

That thick and dark neck shawl gave it such a striking appearance!

 

The next decent gull greeted me when I arrived at Coronation Corner.  On the near bank was an absolute stonker of an adult Yellow-legged Gull.  All adult Yellow-legged Gulls look good, but some look really good, like this one...

Come on.  What a stonker.

 

It wouldn't stop preening though, so getting photos of its head out was a bit tricky

It then went for a walk to the waters' edge...

 

Where it stayed until I left. 

 

Next up was a distant third-winter bird. Am not ashamed to say I thought this was a Yellow-legged Gull based on head and bill shape, as well as leg length. However on reflection its mantle colour (only a smidgen darker than nearby Herrings), and far more importantly Gav's much better photos of a 3w Casp he found on the Estuary a few hours earlier, have brought me to the conclusion this is the very same bird. So a third-winter Caspian Gull...

Right of centre at the near edge of the flock, the rounded soft headed slightly darker mantled bird

 

The final gull worthy of mention, other than three Med Gulls, was what I think is a Herring x Lesser Black-backed.  When I first saw the dark mantle and yellow legs I presumed I had come across a second adult Yellow-legged, but its short dull yellow legs, streaky head and the 'off' colour of the mantle meant I landed on hybrid...

Preening in the above shot, above the head of the left hand preening Herring Gull in the water in front.  Can see the short yellow-ish legs here

 

The only feature that seemed to count against Herring x LBBG was that its bill was a decent size.  I usually find these hybrids have smaller LBBG-type bills, but I guess they must vary. Weirdly it doesn't look as dark mantled in this shot as it was in real life.

 

If the gull quality continues like this throughout the winter, it's going to be a good one!  I wouldn't say no to some more classic-looking Caspian Gulls though... 

 

 

Autumn Slows But Casps Continue

After a cracking week of late autumn sunshine, the weather changed at the weekend with Saturday being a particularly grim day. So, perfect for gulls then!

Before I mention the gulls I will just round up what I saw during the period of settled weather.  Not much to be honest, with a real feeling of autumn coming to a close.  Overhead it's just been the odd Skylark and a very small number of Chaffinches, along with the last few flocks of Wood Pigeons.  No wonder Monday was so spectacular, this was clearly the final push.  There's certainly a few more Redwing around here now, but not loads, and somehow I still haven't seen a Fieldfare yet this autumn!  There's still a few Chiffchaff and plenty of Goldcrests about, however continued searching has failed to show anything better in this department which makes me feel very short-changed.

My highlight of last week came right at the end of it, well after sunset in fact on the Friday.  A family walk up Beer Head showed a surprise Woodcock, which gave lovely flight views as it flew towards Branscombe from near the look-out on Beer Head.  This is only the second Woodcock I have ever seen up here. I don't know if it was an autumn migrant that I fluked upon, or a local wintering bird coming out to feed in the open fields here, but I suspect the latter.

As I alluded to earlier in this post, Saturday was all about gulls, although a look along the river early afternoon didn't actually show that many gulls - but it did include some Casps.  It was great to catch-up with Gav who had the same idea, and he saw an additional first-winter bird to those mentioned below.  

My first Casp and my best one, was a first-winter.  Although when I say the views were dreadful, this is an understatement.  I picked it up when it was fast asleep in a gull flock on Colyford Marsh, half a kilometer away during some extremely heavy rain. It's because of these factors that my photos of it are so shoddy, nothing at all to do with the capabilities of the camera-operator of course...

Bird at the back just left of centre. I could just see clean white underparts, neck and breast, and the really plain and clean greater coverts, with neat pale tips, as well as black tertials.  

The most I could zoom in on it, but neck shawl visible here after it woke up, as well as grey on mantle and a clearer view of the wing pattern.  

I was pleased to get Gav on this bird, and we both actually had pretty decent flight views of it as it took to the air and flew north up the valley.

The second bird in this flock I don't think I can quite claim.  I still think it's a third-winter Caspian, and have no reason to suggest it isn't, however views just weren't quite good enough for me to confirm and the photos weren't as useful as I was hoping...

Bottom left hand bird. Nice clean white head, small eye and longish looking bill with a perfect third-winter Casp dark smudge on the bill. I think I can even detect a bit of rear neck streaking but not completely certain of this.

Bottom left again.  This shot shows head shape a bit better.  Although it doesn't look it in these pics it had a slightly darker top to its mantle compared to the Herring Gulls around, but not dark enough for Yellow-legged.

 

My third Caspian-ish bird of the day, Gav and I both independently found bobbing about on the water north of Coronation Corner.

It looked ok on the water...

Not a huge bill, but lovely white head with a bit of a neck shawl - an ok looking second-winter Casp

 

But I didn't like the look of it so much on dry land.  Even if it did sport a very striking P10 mirror which is a big tick for a Caspian of this age...

Right hand bird (with juv GBBG and second-winter Herring)... quite a grubby looking head with some eye mask streaking, a short bill and very average-sized legs.  But that P10 is there for all to see.

 

I have been battling in my head about this third bird ever since I've seen it.  I want to have it, and that P10 really helps its cause, but there are so many features that hint it is more than just a little impure.  Of course many of our Caspian Gulls  these days are no doubt a little bit rough around the edges, but I think this one might just cross the line for me.  May need a few more days pondering on it. 

Let me know your thoughts, if you have any.  Hopefully my next post will be about whatever stripy warbler I am due to come across any day now...

 

Monumental Pigeon Passage

Yesterday morning, although I wasn't able to count them, in the overcast conditions I was surprised to see numerous large of flocks of Wood Pigeons flying east over Seaton, probably totalling about 10,000 birds.  Not expected at all.... but neither was what happened this morning!

Today saw a complete change in the weather, much cooler overnight temps and a starlit sky made way for a gorgeous sunny morning, albeit with a cold and noticeable northerly wind.  As dawn broke small flocks of Wood Pigeons flew over east, but as I stepped out of my car having changed my viewpoint to Seaton Hole, a single flock of 4,500 Wood Pigeons flew directly overhead and south west, a more usual Pigeon-direction.  But it wasn't until I wandered down to the sea front I could see what they were up to - they were flying out to sea!  

I simply couldn't believe what I could see. Over the sea at several different distances were long lines of Pigeons, some virtually at the limit of binable range.  My first scan revealed 12,000 birds, and over the course of the next 50 minutes I had a total of 64,000 Wood Pigeons fly out south east.  Absolutely incredible.   The most intense Pigeon passage I have ever witnessed here before.  

You'll have to open this picture up to see all the specks!

 

The different shapes of the various flocks were incredible to see

More Pigeons emerging from behind Seaton Hole

A tiny section of one of the distant long lines of birds zoomed in a little more

 

Which when counted properly shows to contain 2,400 birds.  This was part of a line of 8.5k birds.

 

It wasn't just Wood Pigeons overhead (well out to sea mostly!) but Chaffinches were again moving well, with a single Brambling and three Siskin over Seaton Hole.  Settled at Seaton Hole were a couple of Firecrest and a showy flock of four Bullfinch, unfortunately not Northern birds...

Always worth a snap - male Bullfinch

 

Also offshore were seven Common Scoter and good numbers of auks flying east, whilst at Lower Bruckland Ponds a good look through a huge Long-tailed Tit flock failed to show anything better than seven Chiffchaff and a few Goldcrest.

Yesterday morning the sea was a bit more productive for seabirds, with over 1,000 auks flying through distantly and two Brent Geese settled off the beach...

They were close inshore, just close inshore to a distant part of the beach!

 

On Saturday morning three Blackcap were charging around my garden, felt like new arrivals with none of the three looking very settled.  Presumably they were sorting some winter territories out before it gets cold.   

On Friday morning another seawatch revealed nothing better than 23 Med Gulls east and seven Common Scoter settled offshore.   

I have a very busy work-week this week, however I hope to get out a bit at least over the coming sunny days.  Autumn clearly still has plenty to give, and today it gave me about 32 tonnes of Wood Pigeon!

 

  

Sunny Interludes

Although 2025 will be remembered for its sunshine, warmth and lack of rain, October and November have done their best to counterbalance this.   In what has been a very grey and windy month, last Saturday (8th) was a cracker of day, with a light westerly wind and plenty of clear skies at dawn, so I headed up to Axe Cliff where I met James Mc...

We spent a couple of hours mostly watching the visible migration, which in the case of passerines seemed to be mostly happening inland of us due to the lack of wind so numbers weren't as high as expected.  However the watch still have plenty of oddities and when it came to Wood Pigeons - what a spectacle!

07:00 - 09:00 produced (west unless stated):  4 Pintail (over south), 1 Golden Plover, 1 Dunlin, 1 Green Woodpecker (heard calling from Golf Course), 30,000+ Wood Pigeon, 100+ Stock Dove, 1 Mistle Thrush, 5 Redwing, 3 Song Thrush, 450+ Starling, 45 Skylark, 1 Swallow (U-turned back east), 50+ Meadow Pipit, 4 alba Wagtail, 1 Grey Wagtail, 90 Linnet, 30 Goldfinch, 100+ Chaffinch, 3 Brambling, 8 Redpoll, 3 Siskin, 1 Reed Bunting and 1 Cirl Bunting (female briefly perched up then west).

So although no scarcities or rarities there were still plenty of surprises.  The Pintail appeared from nowhere right above our heads and flew straight out to sea.  The Swallow was the first one I've seen for probably a month as they cleared out of here really quick this year, even though before that they and House Martins were about in excellent numbers.  Dunlin was a vismig first for me at Axe Cliff (like the Pintail!) and Mistle Thrush isn't all that frequent up here at all, with the Green Woodpecker being a site first for both James and I, although there's nothing to suggest this was not a resident bird from the village.

The Cirl Bunting was another nice highlight, being the first one I have seen up here since my first one for the patch back in April 2024, which was a lovely singing male.  I heard it calling a few times before picking it up hunkered down on the top of a small bramble hedge. The light was awful but it looked to be a well-marked female...

Presumably the same bird Gav saw up here the previous week

 

As I hinted above, the Wood Pigeon passage was absolutely incredible.  They started off mostly low and following the cliff, with many flocks unusually coming from the north east of us, but then the passage moved a little offshore and gained height.  

The size of some of the wispy snake-like lines of Pigeons were almost too large to comprehend and certainly not something that could be captured by a camera, but I always try... 

Just a few in this shot!

The lower snake of birds is almost too distant to make out in this photo, but look closely and you'll see them

Such a sight to behold

A tiny flock, but I liked the light behind these

A small part of a large flock passing one of the Golf Course flags

They were still moving in good numbers when we left, so it was no surprise that Dan over at Sidmouth had over 40k birds by the time he ended his watch much later in the morning.

Today began with another very pleasant morning, following some absolutely atrocious weather-days.  I spent the first part of the morning aimlessly and randomly walking around Seaton looking skywards hoping for a swift, seeing as the previous evening there were singles in Sidmouth and Budleigh, but no such luck.  Strangely all the Wood Pigeon flocks I saw were flying east (no more than 2,000 birds), but all the Skylarks, Meadow Pipits and Chaffinches I saw were flying west as expected.  

My highlight of the morning was a lovely young male Marsh Harrier that flew in from the north over town, then headed off west...

Novel to see it from Aldi carpark!

 

Back to rain tomorrow, well now in fact as it is lashing down outside.  Storm Claudia is passing by - it's going to be a wet one folks!

 

Red-necked Grebe Up Close

Enjoyed my closest ever views of a Red-necked Grebe today...

Absolutely stunning!

My day took a surprising turn mid-afternoon, when I had a phone call from an acquaintance asking for my advice on what to do about the bird that looked a bit out of place on their driveway.  I should mention at this point, this person lives in Sidmouth, over a mile and a half from the sea in a quiet cul-de-sac.

I was impressed that the finders had tentatively identified it as a Grebe, but thinking there was probably more chance of it being a moribund Guillemot or Razorbill, I asked for a photo before I could offer any further advice. This is the picture I received soon after...

Photo courtesy of finder and home owner S Haynes

 

Seeing it was a Red-necked Grebe, which other than being on a driveway apparently seemed very lively, I immediately referred the finder to the RSPCA. However no luck here, so my phone rang again.  I knew the vets wasn't a great option so I took hold of it myself...with gloves of course!

It did indeed seem to be in good shape, no problems with wings or feet and no visible injuries.  And although I was completely shocked at just how small and compact it looked up-close (can't even begin to imagine how small a Little Grebe would look in the hand!) it had some body fat on it too. Also no obvious signs of bird flu, although of course that could always come on tomorrow so who knows.  

Today we had some really sharp and heavy showers, extremely heavy in fact.  My best guess is it was flying over when one of these showers hit, forcing it down and possibly landing in the street thinking it was a river.

Anyway, my first choice was to release it on the sea, however the large breaking waves put me off this idea so I released it on to the lower Axe Estuary instead.  It swam off strongly, and although at first went down river with the flow of the water, it soon found its legs and by the end of the day had swam up almost the entire length of the Estuary!  A promising sign I hope.

Not a sight ever seen on the Axe Estuary before, and only off the sea front on a handful of occasions

 

Both after the same food!

 

Seeing it mingle with the wintering Little Grebes was amazing, and I hope this bodes well for its chances.  What was reassuring was that I was contacted by a member of the RSPCA West Hatch team this evening, agreeing and praising my course of action, and confirming that it was extremely unlikely West Hatch would have been able to accept this bird.

But it's Steve and Anna who need the praise, otherwise this bird would probably have ended up as Fox or Cat food on a driveway in Sidmouth.  Thank you both. And good luck Grebe, I hope I never see you again as you carry on with your autumn migration...

The post I was supposed to write tonight, about my birding morning last (sunny) Saturday will now be posted tomorrow or Wednesday.  So do check back for that.

In the meantime, Grebe-stroker signing off for the night...

 

A Good Day But No Cigar

Another excellent day of late autumn migration here on the Axe, even if I did fail to find what I had set out to at the start of the day.

Pallas's Warbler and/or Pallid Swift were my hoped for finds today, so it was a bit frustrating that both were found in the County today but not by me. However to be honest it didn't dampen my enjoyment of the day - any day with autumn migration and lots of birds is a good day!

It started well as by 08:10 I had counted 109 Redwing over my garden, with the biggest flock being of 38 birds.  As well as these there was a decent westerly movement of Starlings, but obviously fewer passerines than of late, presumably due to the overcast weather and spells of drizzle.

My first try for a late autumn swift was a vigil from the Bridge Marsh gateway mid morning.  My intentions were there, but the number of birds on the marsh didn't allow me much time to look up!   I couldn't not spend time looking through all the wildfowl present -  we don't often get this luxury on the Axe!

The highlight was a drake Tufted Duck, looking very out of place on the main pool on Bridge Marsh.  This is the first time I have ever seen any aytha duck on Bridge Marsh. Other ducks present included three Gadwall, eight Shoveler (my highest count so far of the autumn) and a decent count for the Axe of 275 Teal.

Never looked that settle which isn't really a surprise!

Even got a wing flap!

Further back on Colyford Marsh, 18 Cattle Egret were spread out nicely...

You'll have to take my word that they were all Cattle - but at least you can see all of them in this shot

I then checked a few sheltered sites for warblers, but couldn't turn up anything other than six Chiffchaff.  Good numbers of Goldcrest as well though, which kept my hopes high for a striped sprite but it wasn't to be today.   

I headed out again mid afternoon, however I managed to time this with the arrival of continuous heavy rainfall.  Very unhelpful.  Still, I did pick up a lovely first-winter Caspian Gull on the Estuary.  They seem to have become scarcer again, as we've had lots of gulls around this week but I haven't been able to find any Casps until this bird.

Views could have been better as the weather was awful, but it was a tall white-headed beast...

Showing off its profile during a downpour

 

Just about see some tail detail and the grey upper scaps on this more zoomed in shot

Quite gutted I couldn't get better views as it was a bit of a corker. I did see it at better angles, but only after it had moved much further away so I didn't even attempt any shots of at this stage.

Back home whilst cooking dinner, it was nice to see a Black Redstart in my garden - right outside the kitchen window!  I didn't have time to grab my camera, but it looked to be one of those first-winters with adult male-type wings, so neither of the two that were in my street last week. 

The weather is looking really promising for a flurry of vismig tomorrow, so I will be giving Axe Cliff another visit. Autumn will be petering out soon so I have got to enjoy it whilst it's here! Check back soon or keep an eye on my socials to see how I get on...