We started the walk going down the road that led to the reserve. Just when we’d left the car, we heard a sound. We looked up and saw a green woodpecker flying right above our heads. First catch of the day. As we walked further, the sound of brent geese was everywhere. In a field by the road, we managed to get a glimpse of the flock. So many!!!!
After about 5 minutes, we reached the hide. We quickly had a rushed look around the feeders and the gardens. We counted 1 great tit, and a blue tit. Not too exciting but eh, birds are birds.
We entered the hide and saw 2 ladies sitting and watching. We had a very nice chat. I took a good long look at the birds outside the hide. A grey heron was sat on the nearest bank and in a far off tree, a silhouetted buzzard and two pigeons sat. Hundreds of Canada goose were taking up the majority of space on the mudbanks and in with them were a few black headed gulls. Now onto the ducks. There were shovelers, wigeons, teals, Pochards, moorhens. Plenty for all. Suddenly, one of the ladies called out to me. I went over and she told me she was looking at a group of teals. She then went and said to me. “One of the ducks in that group is a lot larger than that other lot. Do you know what bird that is?”. I started watching it in the scope. Its head was a very distinctive shape and it had a white wing flash. A juvenile garganey. Only my second sighting for this species. Lapwings were among the stars of the show. There were about 13 birds, flying around everywhere. Literally wherever you look, bagsy there’ll be a lapwing there. Another bird we saw was a common sandpiper, bobbing along the shallows.
We left the hide behind and started the walk to the viewpoint. When we were nearly there, a blackbird popped out in front of us. We reached the viewpoint.
There was plenty out on the mudflats. A few black tailed godwits were very mobile around the estuary. At least 10 birds were flying around. In with the godwits were many waders but I was only able to ID a small minority of them. Among these were dunlin, redshank, greenshank and many others. I took a look among the rocks near the old stone wall, usually a favourite domicile for little egrets. Sadly there weren’t any egrets but there was a great black backed gull (GBB gull, to many birders) sat on a pile of seaweed. To top it all of, a robin landed on the wood right in front of us!
The walk back didn’t give much, but 16 starlings did fly over. What a lovely way to end a good morning’s birding.
The Bovey Birder 