Last Light Larids...etc

The recent chill surrendered its icy grip in spectacular fashion today. The mercury rose several degrees as a SSE hoolie delivered a load of warm, wet Atlantic air. Gulling weather maybe? It seemed so, with Steve finding a nice 3w Yellow-legged Gull on the estuary this morning. I couldn't get out until fairly late afternoon, and was surprised to find very few gulls on the dropping tide. So, a quick look at the sea - nothing - then round to the Tower Hide to see out the daylight. Surely a few gulls would come down the valley later?

Inside the Tower Hide at 15:56, a few minutes after I arrived.

The above photo depicts my kind of hide. Empty.

The light was already dismal and fading fast, but sure enough, gulls began to arrive from inland, many dropping onto the newly-uncovered mud and shingle on the estuary, or the adjacent shallow margins. At this point I spied my first Med Gull of 2026...

Adult Med Gull at 16:00

The light was so awful that max zoom on the P950 gave me just 1/80 sec at ISO 3200. That photo is cropped to roughly 2/3 original size. Still, I thought, if something decent drops in I should still be able to get something...

16:01 now, and it's Med Gull #2, also 1/80 sec at ISO 3200.

A couple of minutes pass. The light is now abysmal. Amazingly I can hear someone climbing the steps to the hide. It's Mike B, similarly drawn to the late afternoon possibilities. Between us we pick out more Med Gulls, several Cattle Egrets ghosting downriver into the wind. A large gull catches my eye as it comes past...

'Caspian Gull! I think that's a Casp!'

It was close, and quick, and views so brief, but there was just something about it...

Thankfully it landed across the river, somewhat downstream of us. And the scope confirmed my suspicions...

1w Caspian Gull, left of centre. Nice and leggy, but definitely not the best angle.

Here it is with its head turned a bit. That lovely, snouty profile...

Those photos are timed at 16:17 and 16:20 respectively. Full zoom gave me 1/40 sec at ISO 3200 for the first one, and 1/30 sec for the second. The light was so bad that the camera was struggling to focus now, and a few minutes later it gave up even trying. So I was that close to failing in my personal Casp photo streak. Phew!

As far as I can recall, that's only the second Casp I've first seen and identified as a fly-by. It is also my second of 2026, and probably my 14th different bird since returning to E Devon in the autumn. Unbeknown to me, Steve was at that very moment scoping the gulls from the Axmouth side of the river, and had also picked out the Casp. Great minds, and all that...

Anyway, the final tally was 1 Caspian Gull, 10 Med Gulls, getting on for 20 Cattle Egrets (we lost count), 8 Avocets (on Black Hole Marsh) and a swarm of assorted dross. Black Hole Marsh was white with gulls - thousands of them - mostly BHGs for sure, but there were many, many Common Gulls coming through too. It was a spectacle unlike any I have witnessed on the Axe. Mike and I finally tore ourselves away when it was too dark to see, and still there were countless gulls yet to head out to sea. Brilliant stuff!

So that was today.

Yesterday I visited Branscombe. It was way too busy for my liking, but I did jam a Firecrest by the little water treatment works there, and added to my 2026 collection of naff Firecrest photos. Two quick bursts, and it was gone...

The best of burst #1...

...and burst #2

I seldom encounter cetaceans off the local coast, so it was great to see 10+ Common Dolphins heading slowly west. They were too far out to pick up with the naked eye, so the camera struggled too...

Common Dolphin x2 off Branscombe

A couple of hours ago the wind finally eased a bit and the rain stopped. It's relatively mild, so I've been suckered into putting the moth trap out...idiot that I am.

Over-egging the Optimism...Again

It was a day of unfulfilled expectations. As frequently happens, there was a big gap between yesterday evening's mental picture and this morning's reality. Over-egging the optimism is my speciality, but at least it gets me up when the alarm goes off. Last night certainly was cold - the coldest night of the winter apparently - but not cold enough to shift many birds. A few pitiful strings of Lapwing threaded their way SW this morning, but other than that my long, circuitous walk up the Axe Valley from Seaton seafront to Colyford and back saw little in the way of cold-weather movement. And nothing in the way of grey geese. Still, it was not without event...

Eastern Lesser Whitethroat of some kind or other.

Bathed in the warm glow of early-morning sunshine, that Lesser Whitethroat looks as brown as you like. I saw just the one bird today (there are at least two present) but it was in good company, with at least 4 Blackcaps and one or more Black Redstarts as well. A nice little hotspot in the middle of Seaton.

I pressed on up the valley...

My first Marsh Harrier of the year over the estuary reedbeds.

One of three Rock Pipits on the Colyord Common saltmarsh.

Back in the day it was typical to see double figures of wintering Rock Pipits here - for example, 25 on 1st Feb 2006. I don't know what the current situation is, but as Rock Pipits are neither egrets, kites or parakeets, I fear the worst.

My final destination and turning point was Colyton WTW. As previously, a stack of Chiffs feasting on tiny Diptera, including two Sibe Chiffs, as well as a Firecrest, 6 Goldcrests and a Blackcap. But their location today and the light were all wrong for happy snapping. Didn't stop me trying though...

This Firecrest was on view for quite a while but never emerged from cover. This is the best I could manage.

I assume the Sibe Chiffs were the same two I encountered last time, but cannot be 100% sure. One gave me just a single opportunity for a photo, while the other was quite obliging. But glaring, sideways-on sunshine made things a bit tricky...

Tristis Chiffs are subtle enough as it is, but you cannot be dogmatic about how they 'ought' to look in photographs, or even in life. They seem to take a chameleonesque delight in changing their appearance according to the lighting conditions. The only constant is that they always look pale and interesting!

Sibe Chiff surveying its larder.

Definitely 'pale and interesting'!

The bird is in total shade here, so this is one of very few shots without the harsh contrast present in most.

Typical lighting today!

On this individual it is actually quite hard to see greenish edgings on the flight feathers, but in this photo they are evident on the left wing at least, where it catches the sun. 

A different bird, but I only got one crack at it. This is the best of the burst.

The day's only downer was that I almost certainly walked right past a pair of Cirl Buntings at Seaton Marshes. Hopefully they will stick around. I've seen the breeding Cirls on Beer Head now, and one at Axe Cliff to the east, but it would be great to have them settle in the valley, right at the heart of the Axe patch.

I'm not interested in chasing numbers, but cannot help noticing that my BirdTrack app reckons I've seen 78 species locally this year. A purposeful birdwatcher would carefully check that list in case they had failed to record something obvious, like Wigeon, say. Oops. Mind you, a purposeful birdwatcher would invariably be submitting 'complete' lists anyway, with full counts and everything. I am not one. Sorry. Also, as it did with Caspian Gull, BirdTrack has reminded me that Siberian Chiffchaff is likewise a description species in Devon. Again, sorry.

Misplaced optimism aside, unpurposefully reacquainting myself with old haunts has thus far been a blast. 

Plans Afoot

Although I find this hard to believe - and rather sobering - I've been publishing online birdy stuff for more than two decades now. In the early days it was BirdForum. My first BF post is dated 24th September  2004, but in January 2006 I started a thread entitled Backwater Birding, focused on the Axe Estuary and nearby locations in East Devon. It rapidly grew to become a popular, multi-author birding diary for the mostly Seaton-based contributors. Backwater Birding was a lot of fun at the time, but I could not have foreseen that it might one day become a source of inspiration for a knackered old pensioner...

As I sit here on a freezing night in January 2026 I can roll back the years to those days of at-that-point largely unrealised hope and expectation, and view them through the lens of 20 years' worth of local birding experience. And boy, what a ride it has been. I am not really one of those who is motivated by the rarities, the ticking and the listing and all that. Of course I have tried it, but for me it's all a bit shallow. No, give me the tricky ID's, the puzzles, the quiet corners, the little voyages of discovery. That's where my jollies lie, and 20+ years of birding in East Devon and West Dorset have provided them in spades.

Within weeks of starting Backwater Birding, this happened...

A composite of several digiscoped pics taken by Steve Waite of 11 White-fronted Geese on Colyford Marsh on 5th February 2006.

The above photos still reside on Backwater Birding, and provide exactly the motivation needed to get me planning an early alarm for the morning. With widespread sub-zero temperatures tonight, and with Tundra Beans and White-fronts peppered country-wide, maybe tomorrow...?

Another source of inspiration is a spreadsheet of my old 2004-2010 records. There was a bit of a freeze in January 2009...

The Axe Estuary at around 14:30 on 7th January 2009. Lots of ice.

Around lunchtime on that date I witnessed the arrival and departure of two flocks of Aythya ducks offshore. First, 15 Pochards and a Tuftie flew around Seaton Bay and away east, then 10 Pochards likewise. Later I discovered a flock of 11 Gadwall on the sea...

11 Gadwall in Seaton Bay on 7/1/2009

Pochard, Tufted Duck, Gadwall? Common stuff, right? Maybe elsewhere, but not here. In fact, Pochard is far from annual. The weather is probably nowhere near as chilly right now, but reminding myself of that cold-weather movement 17 years ago has fired me up for tomorrow.

And there are plans afoot... 

And So It Begins...

A new year is upon us, and with it, new lists. Birdy folk do love a list. Especially a list that can be wiped clean and started afresh every twelve months. Bluesky has been full of it. It doesn't really surprise me that for many this still involves belting around East Anglia in an effort to 'clean up', likely including several individual birds that they've already seen in 2025. Boy, am I glad that ship has long since sailed for me. Whatever floats your boat, but give me almost anything but, thanks.

My first outing of 2026 was a long walk around the Axmouth Lanes yesterday. I knew that Brambling was on the cards, and so it proved...

My first winter Brambling for a few years.

That lovely orange breast...

Some get their birdy jollies in a completely different way...

I did find this very hard to believe, but a friend recently told me that a day's Pheasant shooting costs around £1,500. If that is even half-way true, I do not foresee an imminent reduction in releases!

Come late afternoon, I headed for the Seaton Wetlands to mix it with the masses. Thankfully the masses were by this time quite few. Some decent bits and bobs culminated in a nice find...

The 13 Barnacle Geese currently lingering on the Axe had a bit of a fly around due to shooters on the marshes.

These Avocets on Black Hole Marsh were two of six, which is probably the most I've seen together on the Axe patch.

Around 16:10 this first-winter Caspian Gull dropped onto the river outside the Tower Hide. It proved to be the same bird I had seen on December 24th, and which Steve photographed by the Tram Sheds on 29th.

The light was pretty dim at this stage of the day, but there is no mistaking the white head; the light-grey, sparsely-marked mantle/scaps; white-tipped blackish tertials; plain coverts. 

In company with young Herring Gulls here.

To my eye, the head/bill is less than ideal, and for me this bird does not quite have a classic 'look'. But you can't fault its plumage.

I've started using the BirdTrack app again this year, and it immediately reminded me that Caspian Gull is still a description species in Devon. Sigh... I doubt that's going to happen...

 

And so to today.

Late this morning I stepped out the front door and spent the rest of the day investigating footpaths and habitat close to home, mostly on the west side of Axminster. It wasn't all plain sailing...

Footpath closed. Thankfully I had a Plan B.

I ended up with 42 species. Among them were a few that I did not foresee, like Green Sandpiper, Kingfisher, Stock Dove and Treecreeper. It was great to see seven Stonechats, two Blackcaps and a Chiffchaff too. I was pleasantly surprised at the obvious potential, and really enjoyed myself.

Early days.

Green Sandpiper on the River Axe, just out of reach of the nearest footpath.

Treecreeper playing hard to get.

At one point I was amazed to bump into a couple wearing binoculars, quite close to an estate of new houses. They were looking for Bullfinch, which they had encountered previously at this very spot. No Bullfinches today, but such excellent gen was immediately filed under 'Vital Axminster Bird Stuff'.

Obviously.