Trip reports
Bowling Green Marsh - 20 October 2009
Monday, 26 October 2009
The tide on the River Exe was just over top mark and beginning to fall, so that hordes of birds that feed on the estuary flats were sitting out top tide in convenient locations, the best known of which is the Bowling Green Marsh.
There were literally thousands of waders around the grassy edges of the large lagoon, including many curlew and black-tailed godwits with just six or seven bar-tailed godwits mixed among them.
Other waders present included several redshank, twelve greenshank, eight knot, one curlew sandpiper, a couple of snipe and some small bunches of dunlin. There were also a couple of heron and numerous little egrets working around the edge of the water.
Wildfowl were present in good numbers and included wigeon, teal, mallard, shoveler, pintail and two shelduck. Canada geese are usually very numerous but only one was present until eventually a large noisy flock flew in. More interesting were the two greylags and four brent geese there.
Eventually the rain eased up and the group made its way to the observation platform overlooking the mud flats where the River Clyst joins the Exe. Birds on view included oystercatchers and many more black-tailed godwits plus two common sandpipers working their way along the tideline. Biggest surprise of the day was when three black swans came sailing down the Clyst and around the corner that leads to the Goatwalk. There is a resident population of black swans at nearby Dawlish. Did they come from over there?
Other birds seen from the platform included buzzard, sparrowhawk, large numbers of goldfinches, pied and grey wagtail, great spotted woodpecker, many of the more common species and a nice female blackcap. The successful day ended with explosive calls of a Cetti's warbler from the reeds behind the observation platform.