Black Hole Marsh, Seaton & Budleigh Salterton - Sun 12 Sep

I headed off for a few hours of birding after lunch (and the Italian Grand Prix) whilst Ellie stayed at home for a bit of a rest. Driving straight to the fairly new reserve of Black Hole Marsh on the Axe Estuary just north of Seaton, I arrived at about 3.15pm. A mate of mine had given me directions on how to find this reserve and they were spot on, as before long I was looking out over the scrapes and was impressed by this new area. There were a few waders about, noteably a couple of Greenshank and a Knot. A couple of Little Stints were also present, as were three Curlew Sandpipers.
As it was still pretty early in the afternoon, I decided to carry on along the coast and visit Budleigh Salterton where a flock of some twenty Glossy Ibis had been present for the last few days. I parked up at the "White Bridge" about half a mile north of the town proper, and walked down the river, seeing a couple of Greenshanks and a Black-tailed Godwit along the way. As I neared the cricket field I scanned across and could make out about a dozen Glossy Ibises on the far side of the field, alongside another footpath. So I retraced my steps and found this second path and before long had cracking views of a total of seventeen Glossy Ibises, and again I managed a few shots with my mobile phone:



UK List for 2010 now at 208 species.