Saturday 29 October 2011

South-east Devon - Sat 29 Oct

An early start as myself and some of the usual crowd set off at 7.00am and drove down to Orcombe Point near Exmouth to search for a Dusky Warbler. After a good search we drew a blank, hardly surprising as the weather overnight had been pretty clear and ideal for migration. We did see several hundred Woodpigeons fly over as well as a Peregrine but with little else about we headed inland.
Our next stop was Aylesbeare Common RSPB, we were hoping to find some Dartford Warblers, but the severe weather over the past two winters has decimated the population and we again missed out. We did see a couple of Siskin fly-over and heard a few Lesser Redpolls and Redwings also.
Continuing east we stopped off at Branscombe, parking in the village and walking down to the beach. Whilst it looked ideal for scarce migrants we again saw very little, with the pick of the few birds we did see being a Chiffchaff. A couple of Ravens flew over, as did a Peregrine.
We then set off for Seaton, and after a quick and unproductive stop (other than giving me a chance to get a very tasty bacon and sausage baguette) at Seaton Hole we drove on to Black Hole Marsh...where there were no birds! Technically not quite true, but there was certainly nothing out of the ordinary. A few Black-tailed Godwits were on the estuary and were about the pick of the crop.
So at 3.30pm we called it a day and headed on back home. A great day out socially, but a real dead loss with regard to birds!

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