Breakfast & Lunch

Breakfast birding is mostly what I do currently, quite often from first light. The sense of anticipation is electric sometimes, knowing that I will be the first that day to explore some prime bits of West Dorset coastal habitat. Off I stride, full of hope: what exciting birds have dropped in overnight?

Sadly, all too often these days the answer is 'absolutely none'. Certainly that was the case yesterday and today.

Still, there is always lunchtime.

It is ages since I've felt much like lunch-break birding. It used to be a regular thing - in the winter months especially - and I could often be found beside the Axe Estuary at lunchtime, checking out any gulls on offer. Yesterday I felt those old urges again, so pulled up by Coronation Corner for a sarnie session. The Axe Ospreys appear to have moved on now, so instead of acres of freshly-flushed, gull-free mud, there was actually a decent gathering, with new birds dropping in all the time. I had spotted a 1cy Med Gull even before peeling the lid off my yoghurt, but the growing number of big gulls eventually made me get out and look properly. Very quickly there was joy...

That's a 1cy Yellow-legged Gull peering over its shoulder at us. Magnifique!

Only my second YLG of the autumn, and a cracker too. Unfortunately, while it was relatively close to me it spent the whole time washing and preening, then immediately flew a lot further away and landed on the mud about mid-way between Coronation Corner and the Tower Hide across the river. Rather than post a whole load of skanky washing/preening shots I thought it might be more helpful to annotate them first, so I can at least pass them off as vaguely 'instructional'...

The final shot in the sequence is where the bird ended up staying for the remainder of my lunch break. I could see that the Tower Hide was busy (Osprey hopefuls?) so did post precise directions on the local WhatsApp in case there were any group members in the hide. If so, hopefully they realised that any 'left' or 'right' was from their perspective, and that 'lump of stump or something' wasn't too ambiguous. I would like to think someone else managed to see this handsome beast...

1cy Yellow-legged Gull. Lo-o-o-o-ovely.

The Med Gull wasn't bad either...

1cy Med Gull on the left.

Breakfast birding as follows...

Yesterday. Cogden: 5 Chiffs, 1 Blackcap, 2 Wheatears, 1 Ringed Plover, and 4 Common Scoter W. In the strong - and oddly warm - north-easterly an impressive movement of hirundines got underway at first light. Thousands and thousands - a mix of Swallows and House Martins with the odd Sand Martin - coasting E across a very broad front, with birds coming in off the sea as well as along the coastal ridge. By around 08:00 it was basically over, with just a dribble after that. Quite a spectacle.

Beach Wheatear. Passerine migrants on the deck/in the bushes were at a premium.

Today. Cogden: similar conditions. If anything the wind was possibly stronger than yesterday, and hirundines were on the move again. I arrived later though, and numbers were certainly lower. I did spend ten minutes in one spot on the beach, picking through the steady flow of birds in optimistic hope of a Red-rumped Swallow. You've got to try.

6 Chiffs, 1 Blackcap, 1 Willow Warbler and 10 Wheatears (an arrival!) was as good as it got on the passerine migrant front. A flock of 3 Turnstones and 2 Ringed Plovers E was nice, also 9 Teal likewise. Other highlights included 4 Cirl Buntings and, on the sheltered upper slopes mainly, a lot of butterflies. In view of the terrible 2024 Big Butterfly Count figures recently published by Butterfly Conservation, I was very happily conscious of their presence today...

Painted Lady on the beach.

Painted Lady, silly context shot.

Cormorant giving its gular pouch some serious exercise.

Comma on the sheltered upper slopes of Cogden.

And why it's called a Comma.

Spot the Cirl. They don't always perch up conveniently.

Spot the Cirl, trickier version.

Small Tortoiseshell in the garden when I got home. It would be pretty awful if this beautiful insect became an unusual sight.

All I can say is: thank goodness for gulls. In the last week or two they have provided a lot more in the way of jollies than the 'regular' (ha-ha!) autumn migrants that ought to be filling that role. Ah well, there is time yet I guess...