The high pressure combined with spring tides meant we had a longer than usual cruise this afternoon – the boat moves up the estuary on the rising tide, which took its time!
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| Great Crested Grebe |
Grebes stole the limelight today: first a Little Grebe off Dawlish Warren, then two more near the Slavonian at Cockwood and then a total of 18 Great Crested Grebes scattered up as far as Topsham (18 is the most I’ve seen in the Exe in over 25 years of watching).
The Harbour Seal was out on Bull Hill sandbank and on our return was getting ready to float off, with her head and tail held high in classic ‘banana’ pose. She’s a star!
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| Long-tailed Duck |
Eighty Shelduck, 7 Goldeneye, lots of Red-breasted Mergansers, ‘our’wintering female Long-tailed Duck, groups of Wigeon and Teal and virtually the whole of the estuary’s Brent Geese in flight provided some good wildfowl watching.
Waders were concentrated in the upper half of the estuary today, with over 200 each of Grey Plover and Bar-tailed Godwit.
Of course Avocets gave good views and all three ‘shanks’ were feeding in the River Kenn outlet, though the Spotted Redshank took a while to find.
By around 5:00 pm large numbers of gulls had arrived to roost, including over 25 Lesser Black-backs (returning migrants from Iberiaand West Africa) and 300 Common Gulls.
Including these, there must have been well over 10,000 water birds on the estuary during our return to Exmouth!
Dave Smallshire
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