Exminster Marshes

Exminster Marshes

Tuesday 15^th November 2011.

Oh what a beautiful morning! 30 and more of us assembled in the car park in the sunshine. It was a day of flocks. A flock of humans seeking birds; flocks of Lapwings flying and on the ground. It is really good to see so many of them. They were rather edgy which could have indicated a predator, but none was seen. There were flocks of Curlew on the grass, looking not unlike clods of earth. When they fly they do look front heavy, with their large long bills. Then there were flocks of Canada Geese on the ground eating. The only time that we saw them flying was when a man was tending to his cattle. Ducks were not in great numbers yet, but as the wind has been from the south and it is very warm, one has to presume that they are still in their summer homes. We saw about 200 Fieldfares, which were on the ground and every now and then flew into the trees, settling like flowers. They are the larger of the winter thrushes and have distinctive grey heads and dark tails. There were one or two Redwings among them; they are much smaller and not so skittish. On the return trip we saw a flock of Redwings, which in fact settled much nearer, thus allowing us to have a good look. Their distinguishing feature is their very obvious yellow eye stripe. We thought that they must have just arrived. There was a small group of that elegant bird the Avocet on the water. They are lovely and very distinctive. They have a peculiar feeding action of sweeping their bills from one side to the other.

The bird of the day was the White-fronted Goose, or rather two of them. They were among the Canadas, but although they were in the long grass, often with only their heads showing, we had a very useful marker, a beige cow which was happily grazing and not moving. This made it easy for us all to see them. They are smaller, and is brown with white over the bill. They either breed and summer in Iceland or Northern Russia and Siberia. Apparently the Russian ones have pink bills and come to Wales and southern England, and the Iceland ones have orange bills and go to Ireland and Scotland. The bills of the ones we saw looked very orange to me, so you never know with birds what to find. They are almost entirely vegetarian, eating grass sedge and reeds.

It was a super “morning” which finished after 2.00pm. Thanks go to John and Mark for their help and guidance.

Number of species seen: 53

Ann Crawford

Birds seen, in BOU order or alphabetic order

BOU order

Mute Swan

White-fronted Goose

Greylag Goose

Canada Goose

Wigeon

Teal

Mallard

Pintail

Shoveler

Pheasant

Cormorant

Little Egret

Grey Heron

Buzzard

Kestrel

Coot

Avocet

Grey Plover

Lapwing

Dunlin

Snipe

Black-tailed Godwit

Bar-tailed Godwit

Curlew

Redshank

Black-headed Gull

Common Gull

Lesser Black Backed Gull

Herring Gull

Wood Pigeon

Great Spotted Woodpecker

Magpie

Jackdaw

Rook

Carrion Crow

Raven

Blue Tit

Great Tit

Cetti’s Warbler

Long-tailed Tit

Wren

Starling

Blackbird

Fieldfare

Redwing

Robin

Stonechat

Dunnock

Pied Wagtail

Chaffinch

Greenfinch

Goldfinch

Linnet

Alphabetic order