Saturday 17 March 2012

West Bexington & Abbotsbury - Sat 17 Mar

After a morning at work I settled down and watched the first of the Six Nations matches before recording the others and taking Tristan out for the afternoon, thus givign Ellie some time to herself. Setting off at 2.45pm I drove down to the coast and arrived at West Bexington around 3.30pm. I walked east towards the Coastguards Cottages in an attempt to finally connect with the Velvet Scoters that had been off the coast here for the entire winter.
After a mile of walking of muddy shingle I set up my scope and scanned the sea. It was rather overcast weather and the wind meant there was a real swell on the water. This made it difficult pinning down any birds, however, I did locate a Great Crested Grebe and a Razorbill, but no ducks. A couple of Kittiwakes passed by as did a Gannet or two.
My first Wheatear of the year was located in one of the fields behind the beach, surprisingly it was a female. The same field also held a large flock of a couple of hundred Common Gulls and two splendid summer-plumaged Mediterranean Gulls.
Returning to the car I spent twenty minutes scanning the sea and eventually located the Velvet Scoters, with three birds present. I was also able to point them out to a fellow birder who had made the trip from the Blackdowns.
Leaving West Bexington I made a brief stop at Abbotsbury. Scanning the area from the car I got on the two Scaup I had seen a couple of weeks ago, only this time they were much closer and I didn't need to walk miles on shingle to see them! There were also three Barnacle Geese grazing on the meadow (these are widely believed to be genuine wild birds). Time was against me though and Tristan reminded me that it was nearing his dinner time, so off we headed back home.

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