Midlands Birding Blog

In the middle of winter, during those long, often birdless, walks around our patch with few more species on our list than there were at the end of New Years' Day, we could all do with a bit of motivation. A reminder that anything can happen in birding, even things that seem scarcely believable. I spend a lot of time in Devon and one of my favourite areas is the Axe Estuary. On the 4th of August 2016, I was down for a week on holiday and, being 20 minutes away, decided to go to Black Hole Marsh on the Axe Estuary to see the Least Sandpiper which had been found 2 days previously. The bird was performing outrageously well from the screens at the base of the hide walkway. Far too close for scopes and close enough that I could get this photo with a phone camera: I've seen plenty of Least Sandpipers in the USA but even there, I have never seen one so close. It gave a great opportunity to study the plumage details. Who knew I'd have to employ them so soon? After getting ...

My main birdwatching trip during the week's holiday in Devon was to Dawlish Warren, where I was hoping to find the Roseate Tern. Being July, I wasn't expecting too much, but it ended up being a really productive trip. I hadn't realised that for over a year now the path to the bird hide has been closed due to erosion, turning a walk which was formerly quite short into a much longer slog along the beach.  You now have to walk along the path to Groyne 10 and then along the beach to Groyne 18 and then round and back on yourself to the hide. This probably doubles the length of the walk. We had timed our trip so as to reach the hide around high tide and didn't have time to do the new walk. We therefore feared the visit was over before it had even begun, but decided to make the best of the situation and scope the Bight from the dune-top path level with Groyne 10, just before the path is closed. This turned out to be more successful than we expected and I quickly picked up one ...