Nature Notes

Wading birds

A variety of wading birds - both passage migrants and over-wintering ones - have been showing around the North Devon coast these past weeks. Curlew sandpipers, green and wood sandpipers, a (single) spotted crake, ringed plovers, turnstones and bar-tailed godwits amongst others. There have also been  plentiful numbers of oystercatchers and curlew again. At the foreshore of the estuary one evening recently the autumnal rays from a westering sun caught the red bills and pink legs of a loose gathering of oystercatchers making them appear as if from the tropics!

• Turnstones at Skern

Just as described by Edward A. Armstrong in the chapter The Lough in Winter from his book Birds of the Grey Wind:  "In winter, birds which are almost indistinguishable brown specks on the mud when the summer sun is overhead are now picked out by the slating rays with every hue accentuated ..." "Even the demure and dumpy ringed plovers tripping along the mud in fits and starts, with yellow legs twinkling beneath dark dibs, look almost elegant', he continued.

• Ringed plover on the mudflats

Ringed plovers, particularly when at roost, are often confiding to a degree as, on occasion, are turnstones and dunlin. Proof are in the photos.

At Bradiford water toward the end of September some birders - myself included - hoping to see the spotted crake that as spent a couple of weeks here logged two whinchats instead!

• Curlew with its ragworm meal

Did I see the red-breasted flycatcher when on Lundy on  September 26? (One had been seen earlier that week on the lundy). I will never know but when journeying down the beach road for embarkation I caught sight, across Millcombe valley, of a flycatcher species. It had briefly perched on a wire fence before flying back into some bushes.  But time did not permit further investigation. At once birdwatching can be the most rewarding and the most tantalising of pursuits ...

• Dunlin resting at high tide