5 days R & R...Pre - Devon!

I’m sure you can understand that when I am tucked up under the duvet, with a warm bottle (I admit it!), my thoughts keep drifting (Ed: ?) back to the wonderful moment last week (Ed: ???) when I witnessed the wonderful spectacle of waders coming in off the Wash in groups, at 7am, and then the awe inspiring sight of c4k of Knots returning to the Wash at the tide receded.

In fact it took me back some 10-12 years when I was told there was a very small nizzen type hut on the edge of the lake, and birders would go in there well before high hide, and just wait until the birds were flushed (oh,oh!) off the sea and onto the islands on the lake.  And until the birds had returned to the water, any birder in the hide would not be allowed out for fear of frightening the birds. I WAS TOLD, and I repeat it with the honesty of the story, that there was a convenient bucket in the corner of the hut. 

Well, it ain’t there now – so I assume those awful storms put paid to that.  

Tuesday 17^th January, and I am still recovering from my accident in Norfolk, with a very painful back.  But mooching aground gets me nowhere, so I drove to Slimbridge to hopefully add 3 or 4 birds to my year.

The journey to Slimbridge, especially out of Derby was horrendous. (Don’t you get a recurring theme of my driving experiences?), but I duly arrived there safely, only to emerge from the car and find that it was wet, and it was so cold all the Flamingos had been put inside. 

The Rushy Penn was a good start with 8 Cranes, and Bewick Swans were dotted around on different pools or grasslands, but the big disappointment was no White Fronted Geese. I was told that as it was low tide, they would have been out on the Severn Estuary, and although I hung around to 3 o’clock ish, none came to the reserve. I shall have to hope that they will still be around at the end of February when I might try again.

Otherwise very little to report. I did hear a call in the Zeiss hide of a Bittern, but by the time I got to the appropriate window, it had vanished in the reeds.

Saturday 21st January, and up to then I had been favouring my still painful back, with a GP visit and a later GP telephone consultation. So, a quick visit to Carsington failed to find the Diver or a Barnacle Goose, but a nice bonus was a Tree Creeper.

Sunday 22nd January.  This was the first of my new hour and a half Birdwatching for Beginners walk in Markeaton Park.

Despite the biting cold, 22 different species were seen, with one of the first being a cute diminuitive Goldcrest. Not everyone had binoculars (a rectifiable mistake for next month!!), but the hovering of the Goldcrest was still visible to everyone.  Having mastered what they were told is the smallest British bird, the group readily identified 2 subsequent Goldcrests.

Pausing at the feeding table near the Ha – ha, the group saw 3 species of Tit collecting seed from the handfuls that I had put on the table, and then wondered at the agility of the Nuthatch, the only British bird that can climb down a tree.

The  lake offered up the usual suspects, but the bonus for standing round in the cold, was to see 2 little grebes repeatedly diving near north island. Little Grebes, the smallest  of all British water birds, have been seen briefly at Markeaton in the last 4 years, but unlike Great Crested Grebes they have not bred there. Maybe 2017??

Monday 23rd January.  Right, I’ve packed all my optics, booked for the Avocet cruise on the Exe, researched what good birds are around the Exeter and Exmouth area, and Mary and I are off to Devon for 7 days. 60 birds target!! Well, I’m on 111 so things are slowing up a bit.   

Sufficient for the moment to say that we duly arrived at Exmouth mid-afternoon, with the driving being a bit painful for 270 miles, but no birds to report for the day.   So, I’m going to hold over all the excitement of Devon until next weeks’ blog. We don’t get home until Monday 30^th, so this one will miss my usual deadline.   I’ll just leave you with this glorious photo of a sunset on the Exe, at the end of an Avocet cruise in 2014. The background on the Starboard side is Dawlish Warren.

And don’t forget next Sunday (5^th February) the usual Carsington Beginners walk..as always at 10.00am