Sutton Bingham - Sat 6 Sep

The recent run of Whinchats continued today with two birds at West Pool, favouring the same area as the previous five birds this autumn, the fence line on the left hand side of West Pool as you look at it.

The only other bird of note was the juvenile Osprey which has been present for a few days now.

Sutton Bingham - Wed 3 Sep

I spent a few hours at the reservoir this afternoon and it turned out to be a pretty profitable visit. Scanning the fence along the edge of West Pool I located a total of four Whinchats, my highest ever count of this species at Sutton Bingham as they tend to pass through in ones or twos. They were joined by a female Reed Bunting for a short while.
Walking from the car park south along the water's edge I was checking the Chiffchaffs feeding in the small sallows and willows when I noticed an Osprey perched on in a tree on the far bank! Unfortunately it did not hang around and soon took to the air and headed north, I was unable to relocate it. This is the third Osprey I've seen on the patch this year.
Just to the south of the Canoe Club I picked out a falcon hunting over the fields opposite, a Hobby! Within a few minutes it had been joined by two more with all three hawking insects.
Returning to the car park I failed to see anything else of note, but some cracking birds this afternoon.

Meare Heath NR - Sun 31 Aug

This afternoon I made my first trip up on to the Somerset Levels for a couple of months and it was well worth the trip. Parking at Ashcott Corner I walked east towards Meare Heath and Noah's Lake, stopping at the drained lagoon to check out the mass of birds assembled there. Before too long I had noted four Green Sandpipers, half a dozen Dunlin and four  Ruff and a roosting Garganey. A single Great White Egret was also present and the arguable highlight a moulting adult Curlew Sandpiper. A Water Rail was also seen on the fringes of the pool skulking in and out of the reeds.
I then headed off to the hide that overlooks Noah's Lake and almost the first bird I saw was a very smart Osprey.

 

Not a lot else was seen from the hide so I retraced my steps back towards the car, pausing again to look over the waders before heading on home after a lovely afternoon out in the sun with some good birds to boot.

Sutton Bingham - Sun 31 Aug

I must have spent less little more than quarter of an hour at Sutton Bingham this morning as I had other commitments so literally popped in whilst passing by...and unbelievably I managed to add another bird to the patch year list. A Greenshank flew in and did a couple of circuits of West Pool, attempted to land once or twice then gave up and gained height before vanishing to the south, all the while calling away with that piping trisyllabic "tui-tui-tui"! A real unexpected bonus as it looks like the chances of any mud being available for waders this year will again be zero.

Sutton Bingham - Wed 27 Aug

A flying visit to the patch on the way to work and I spent literally minutes at the northern end of the reservoir. Just as I pulled away I noticed the gathered gulls suddenly take to the air so I slammed on the brakes and grabbed my bins and looked to the skies expecting to see something and sure enough an Osprey was overhead. I watched it for about a minute before it drifted south and was lost to view.

Sutton Bingham - Sun 24 Aug

A while since my last blog entry simply because I've not actually seen anything much. An entire morning on the patch last week failed to produce anything other than a good number of Chiffchaffs and a few flying visits have only yielded a couple of Common Sandpipers and the odd Kingfisher!
Today was slightly different though as a mid-morning visit produced a couple of really good birds for the patch. Scanning the fence line at the edge of West Pool I found a Whinchat and a Redstart! A real result, with only my third record of Redstart (and second in two years) and the first Whinchat on patch for a couple of years.
As it happens there was not much else about other than a single Little Egret feeding on the dam and the outflow stream hosted a Kingfisher and a Grey Wagtail.
Sutton Bingham year list for 2014 now at 98 species.

Wydcombe Estate NT - Tue 5 Aug

My first ever trip to the Isle of Wight today, and the main reason was to see the breeding Bee-eaters. When the National Trust released the news a week earlier I had run the idea past my better half and we decided to make a family day of it, so I booked the ferry and because it was a mid-week sailing it cost less than fifty pounds for the return trip.
An uneventful journey and we arrived at the special viewpoint on the Wydcombe Estate at around 12.30pm, and within a couple of minutes I had seen one Bee-eater with prey flying almost over the car. Over the next hour I had a couple more flight views and some good, if a bit distant, views of at least two different birds perched on wires. Absolutely brilliant stuff, and although I had heard a Bee-eater on the Isles of Scilly last year, this firmly planted it on my UK list. I attempted some photos, but the birds were distant!

 

 

 

Not a lot else in the way of birds as the rest of the day was spent doing family things, but I didn't mind, it had been a very successful trip to a place I'd never been to before.