Clevedon Wildlife

Deciding to do a self propelled year list seemed like a good way to force myself into taking more exercise....as things often seem from the comfort of a sofa. Anyway a paucity of excuses, and a suitable morning tide drove me out to do the Dowlais loop today. It paid off in terms of three more year ticks, such as great black backed gull but also gave me the opportunity to check for lapwings and pipits. The lapwings will hopefully stay to breed and you just cannot get enough practice with pipits. The lapwings were present and correct with about 50 noted over all. Pipits put on a fine show with several meadows on the manure pile and by the fence at the Kenn estuary. The same area held a couple of rock pipits and I was lucky enough to have one close enough to get a snap A brute of a great black-backed gull with, presumably a dirty bill gave a vague impression of Western Gull The first, halting strains of skylark song briefly hinted at spring but the presenc

With the weather staying a bit grim I can use the space to report on a couple of the rarer birds around at the moment. This Richard's pipit is apparently here for it's third winter in channel view bay, Kingston Seymour and is now in adult plumage. It is great to have a bird from Siberia over here and also an opportunity to compare it with the meadow and rock pipits that are common here. It is also easy to mistake skylarks for something rarer so here is a pic of that too. Speaking to friends it appears that our local skylarks are much tamer than ones elsewhere in the country so a walk along the estuary is the ideal place to learn about them. They also breed at dowlais so our skies are full of their song from March to June. Avocets are another occasional visitor that are around at the moment with up to 28 being seen from channel view. Easily the biggest numbers ever locally and probably birds from the wintering flock at Steart. As with most of my photos, t

Welcome to my blog about the wildlife I see near to my home in Clevedon, near Bristol in the UK. This is intended to share some of the animals, birds and insects that I find as I wander around the local area. Hopefully it will help others to see them too. I plan to update it roughly once a week but don't hold me to that ! So far January 2020 has been warm and generally wet and gloomy but there have still been some unexpected things around. Without doubt my highlight has been this otter that swam up the Blind Yeo and under the Yatton road bridge at 2.00 pm on the 10th. I followed it for a few hundred metres but never got especially close as it worked the margins, mostly underwater searching for a late lunch. This river is a great site for Goosanders in the winter with the flock varying daily from a couple to nearly 20. A less typical duck is this Mandarin who has taken up residence on the Land Yeo recently and can sometimes be seen near the strode road traffic calm