I have given quite a bit of consideration to today's Blog post.... I have ben wondering how I am going to put in to words, surely the best days bird watching I have ever had in the county. Not only did I see and photograph 2 lifers (that's bird species that I haven't seen before), but I also added two more new species to my Devon bird gallery. Here's a list of the birds seen today in order of their speciality.
1. White-billed Diver (Photos) the 3rd County record... above.
2. Black Guillemot (Photos) a very rare Devon bird.....Number 1. below.
3. Red-necked Grebe (Photos) annual but rare Devon bird.
4. Black throated Diver (Photos)
5. Great Northern Diver (Photos)
6. Long-tailed Duck (poor photos)
Six of the best you might say.
Once all the participants had arrived, we headed out of Paignton as normal and started to look out for Divers and Grebe. The first bird of interest was a Great Northern Diver which was feeding, close in to the beach at Goodrington Sands. The skipper manoeuvred the bows in the birds direction and we drifted in as close as we could get without running aground of course. Close enough for photos which would have been good had I not taken such good close ups the other day. Never the less, this was an interesting bird.
The next interesting birds was a pair of Red-necked Grebe. This is a rare but regular winter visitor to Devon. I haven't seen them before but I knew what I was looking for. They are not a tiny grebe like a Little Grebe or Slavonian, but larger and more long necked like a Great Crested. They have a yellow beak in all plumages so when a pair of grebe took to the air very close to the boat we could see what they were quite easily. They were very flighty and hard to get close to but I tried very hard to get at least a record shot.
In flight, perhaps the photographs were more interesting. Each time the boat got within 100 yards of them they took to the air. This was very frustrating.
These distractions kept us away from the main course, the White-billed Diver that is and we steamed slowly in to Brixham Harbour, quite certain that we would find this celebrity without too much trouble. We could see the birders on the Breakwater and by noting the direction of their scopes we could see in which direction we should look. We homed in on the giant diver without too much trouble. It was in the company of two Black-throated Divers which was really interesting in itself because it was educational to see the difference in size between the two species.
You can see in the photograph above, the celebrity White-beaked Diver, the rarest Diver in UK waters. This is the 3rd Devon record in history and one of around 60 in the last 100 years in English and Welsh waters. They are more likely in Scotland though, particularly in the Orkneys and Shetlands. This is a a species that breeds in the Northern Pacific but is known to over-winter rugularly in Northern Norway. I guess that the recent gales have driven these Arctic birds in to our region.
We proceeded out of the harbour to the seaward side of the Breakwater to search for the Black Guillemot reported this last two days. It seems that there are at least two,possibly 3. It was a simple task to find the bird in the bright light and I was thrilled to get photographs of yet another new species. This is a scarce bird in Devon Black Guillemots are in fact almost white in the winter time, this will help them to blend in much better in the icy arctic environment where they should be at this time of year.
It was a good session that included not only a distant Long-tail Duck but also Gannet, Guillemot, Fulmar, Kittiwake and all the usual common gulls as well as Grey Heron and Little Egrets
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