Clevedon Wildlife

 Yesterday I decided to try and photograph 4 species of heron with the hope of seeing 5 and an outside chance of 6. Things started well as I arrived on the levels road to be greeted with a field of cattle and cattle egrets A bonus grey heron in the same spot meant I was 2 down and 2 to go within minutes My next site was the reserve at Westhay where a purple heron had been seen a few days ago and was therefore my outside chance. There were several cars parked on the road as the actual car park is currently being resurfaced and a spotted crake had been showing on and off from the island hide. Arriving at the boardwalk I realised that several people were crowded onto it waiting for bearded tits to appear and feed on grit placed there. So I rapidly retreated and headed a few yards farther along the track and just generally birded. After  20 mins or so I heard an unusual trilling call from nearby reeds interspersed with bearded tit pings which clearly were being made by the same bi...

 Alright I stole that title format from some much better birders who developed the art of bird ID in the 80s to a new level. I will not pretend to be at the very vanguard of this new movement but I think it will improve my call ID skills and want to do my bit in demystifying this area and expand its take up. Essentially its nocmig during the day and I was inspired to try it after reading a blog post by Gavin Haig who decided to use his new recorder in the day time !   https://notquitescilly2.blogspot.com/2020/07/daymig.html Having been interested in vizmig for many, many years this was way too exciting an addition not to try. In essence then all you are doing is adding a sound recorder to your armory when standing on whatever hill, coastal headland, empty national park in Latvia, etc that is your chosen location for observing migration as it happens. There is one big advantage over nocmig in my opinion, and when I say big it is simply enormous: Everything you see and record, o...

 In the absence of any wrynecks I have had lots of opportunities to look for waders in channel view bay. My actual success depends on where they are when I happen to visit and what happens to have roosted here rather than elsewhere in the estuary. The flock roost depends to a certain amount on the height of the high tide plus of course whether I have judged it exactly correctly on the day. Its mostly small waders at this time of year and they can be on the mud in the grass beyond the path Or on the seawall itself The species to search for in particular in early autumn are Sanderling, Little Stint and Curlew Sandpiper which are all difficult-to-impossible in the spring. This last fortnight has been very good with all three species giving themselves up over the course of 8 to 12 visits and being tame enough to photograph Sanderling Little Stint Curlew Sandpiper In addition I have seen the odd Knot fly past (the bigger waders with the whitish rumps in the pic below) And have been trea...

 My daughter was visiting and fancied looking for the Beavers in Devon so we arranged a few hours at Bicton gardens followed by an evening on the river Otter at Otterton. I had been here a few weeks ago when a brief view at dusk produced a photo that was frankly more of an artists impression than an identifiable image. I was really delighted, therefore when this animal appeared in front of the assembled crowd (well 6 or 7 people) at 7.15 pm. Before that we had been entertained by a series of rapid flash-pasts by Kingfishers, a surprise Dipper flying upstream and a family of Grey Wagtails going the other way. I had also, much to my surprise, heard a party of Crossbills fly over. The Beaver did not stay in view for longer than half a minute or so. but I fired off a series of shots. We then stayed for a further hour and were well rewarded. First the female appeared under some bank-side vegetation and we could hear it gnawing loudly. She then moved off downstream and after a while a ki...