Trip reports

Exe Estuary 31st January 2010

Friday, 5 February 2010

On arrival at Exmouth we were greeted with a snow shower that completely obscured any view of the Exe estuary. Fortunately, the snow fall was short-lived and we were able to commence birdwatching. Most people went down to the sea-front where slavonian grebe and common scoter were seen offshore and a black redstart was spotted in a garden. A few of the group headed up the estuary and overlooked the Exmouth LNR to get a preview of some of the species that we hoped would be visible on the forthcoming boat trip. Dunlin, grey plover, curlew and ringed plover were all present as were brent geese and a sizeable number of pintail. On the edge of the estuary rock pipit were seen and a solitary snipe hid in a clump of vegetation.

At 2pm we boarded the trip boat to travel along the estuary. After going towards the mouth of the estuary where a seal was visible, along with herring and great black-backed gulls, brent geese and curlew we headed upstream. In the mid-part of the estuary we saw a great northern diver, a slavonian grebe and red-breasted mergansers as well as several greenshank. A highlight of the trip was finding a red-breasted goose amongst a group of brent geese - the bright sunlight illuminated its chestnut red breast and head so that it stood out prominently amongst the drabber brent geese. At the far end of the estuary a flock of a hundred avocet was feeding chest deep in the estuary channel with dunlin, and black-tailed and bar-tailed godwit all around. The very low tide meant that the birds stayed longer on the mud flats than usual and we got good views of the waders on the way back (and saw another great northern diver). It was dark and very cold by the time we got back to the quayside so many of us were grateful for the fact that we used a boat with a heated lower deck that served hot drinks throughout the trip.