New Year birding

It’s Lockdown again, and all our birdwatching breaks have been postponed.

For the certainty of our clients and for the certainty of ourselves we have postponed all planned birdwatching at least until 1st April, but as things stand, even that might be optimistic – we shall see.

It is all very frustrating for us as we are so keen to share the amazing birdlife of Somerset.

Fortunately, Stephen and I were able get out for an early spot of birding on the 2nd of January, before this Lockdown kicked in. We went down to our coastal patch at the River Parrett estuary.

Our first stop was at the old churchyard at Huntspill where we picked off some good birds. A goldcrest was bobbing around on an old yew tree along with various thrushes, finches, jackdaws and both cattle and little egrets flew out of the vicarage garden along with a single grey heron.

From Sloway Bridge where the Huntspill River has the feel of an Olympic rowing venue with its long straight expanse of water, there were a pair of goosanders, some teal, a few mallards, the obligatory moorhen and our regular jewel of a kingfisher sparkled among the reeds. Going further down to the Sluice a rutted field was full of redwings – about 100 of them – but no sign of a single fieldfare - where had they disappeared to? So often you see these two winter thrushes together, but not today.

Now on the coast it was really bitter, with a biting northerly wind coming straight off the Welsh hills that we could clearly see were quite white with snow. The tide was high which had brought many of the waders closer in and easier to view. There seemed to be only redshanks at first but then we picked off good numbers of dunlin, grey plover (showing their black armpits in flight); groupings of turnstones and a mixed bag of ducks – more teal, whistling wigeon, gadwall (which is unusual for this patch, preferring more inland ponds) and a scattering of shelducks – although nothing like the huge numbers of shelducks we get here in late summer. Close bye some pied wagtails struggled against the cold wind, and skylarks tried to get air-bound – one did and broke into its liquid song warming our cockles, if not our hands.

Close to the water’s edge was a very large gathering of Canada geese – over 200. We did check them all, but sadly no rarities amongst them – we have in the past seen bar-headed and bean geese amongst them - always worth checking.

Across on the far bank of the Parrett we could see a large number of corvids squabbling over the carcass of what looked like a dead sheep – on closer inspection we realised that all the crows were in fact ravens – we counted roughly over 40. Next to the crows were a couple of big great black-backed gulls who looked just as mean as any raven. It is interesting just how the raven population has increased in the 20 years we have been birdwatching in these parts. 20 years ago, you might have seen the odd pair of ravens on top of the Mendips or on the Quantock Hills, now they can turn up anywhere. Informed thinking says that they have changed/adapted their breeding habits to nest more in trees or indeed on electricity pylons.

There was a splattering of other gulls to-ing and fro-ing up and down and across the estuary; common and black-headed, herring and lesser black-backed.

Perched on top of Stephen’s ‘red-backed shrike’ hawthorn bush – did he ever tell you that he saw a red-backed shrike down here… and I missed it? (Thought so) – a male reed bunting was enjoying some now warming sunshine, and a charm of goldfinches flew off, flashing like the last Christmas decorations on the tree.

Curlews called from the salt marshes (don’t you just love a curlew’s call?) and a flock of lapwings floated overhead with soft black wingbeats fluttering not unlike a group of large black and white moths.

Stephen and I left our telescopes on the footpath as we ventured off-piste an on to the salt-marsh proper, where the going underfoot was tricky and free arms were necessary to keep balance as we leapt gingerly across ditches and water runnels. Almost immediately a group of common snipe shot up with their characteristic ‘sneeze’, then a zigzag flight until they disappeared to a small dot in the sky. Every few yards more and more snipe shot up, along with good numbers of skylarks too. This was great, but they were not our target bird.

Jumpin Jack Flash - our target bird - a Jack snipe

At that, Stephen pointed “There’s one!”

It was another snipe, however this one did not sneeze, nor did it fly off for any great distance.

This was a Jack snipe, a much rarer bird with a stumpier bill than the common snipe and two very distinctive creamy stripes down its back. We were well chuffed to see it. After it is flushed it sort of flops back down into the reeds just a short distance further on – and no matter how keen your eye is, and you think you’ve seen exactly where it has landed, very rarely do you see the same bird again, as once it lands it runs off for cover.

We saw two further Jack snipes at which point we thought we’d done pretty well, and we’d call it a day.

Walking back along the coastal track the tide had turned and a wide strip of mud was now exposed by the riverbank and was generously sprinkled with a collection of different waders. we stopped to scan with our telescopes and enjoyed watching a large number of elegant avocets looking quite the picture, as they spread their upturned bill from side to side looking of invertebrates in the freshly exposed mud.

It had been a good start to the year with 59 different bird species seen before 9.30 in the morning.

Here’s to 2021.