Summer is over - official.
Summer is over – official – although the last few warm days have been more barbecue than bonfire weather.
Leaves are changing colour and falling on the lawns; holidays in August now seem too distant to talk about anymore, and Stephen and I have returned to our routine of Saturday morning visits to our coastal patch visiting the estuaries of the River Brue and Parrett.
Now, almost through September the birdlife is certainly changing.
The swallows have now all departed from Walls Farm, however daily in warm blue skies there are always still plenty to enjoy heading south, particularly along the coast.
Large numbers of redshank and turnstones have appeared on the mudflats with regular sightings of common sandpipers, small, white tummied waders bobbing away at the river’s edge.
Redshanks enjoying the mud
Goldfinches and linnets are flocking on teasle heads and pied and yellow wagtails dart around snatching at insects.
On the last two weekends we have had the thrill of watching a young peregrine falcon swooping and diving, lashing out at anything and everything – he is clearly still learning his trade – as he is not very good at killing anything (as far as we have seen). He certainly is having fun zooming down low over the marshes scaring the bejesus out of the redshanks and local pigeons.
Hunting peregrine
We had another wonderful recent encounter with a hunting raptor when we witnessed a large female sparrowhawk chase a goldfinch twisting and turning up to 10 tight turns heading straight for us – so engrossed in the chase it did not notice us standing with our mouths wide open. At the last minute the hawk gave up the hunt (it ran out of puff?) and sloped off low over a hedge to re-charge her batteries – the lucky little finch flew off in the opposite direction to live another day.
Where the two river estuaries meet there is a good mix of habitat, with tidal grassland, hedges and bramble-scrub – perfect for spotting chats heading south on their migration. We have not been disappointed over the last few weeks, with regular sightings of wheatear, stonechat, and today we had a fine female whinchat.
On the Parratt’s larger estuary there are many shelducks, oystercatchers, gulls of every flavour, particularly the large greater black-backed. Duck numbers too, are beginning to build up, with wigeon and teal starting to return from their breeding grounds.
Our Saturday morning walk would not be a proper Saturday morning without a good splattering of little and cattle egrets along with the impossibly elegant avocets swishing their upturned bills from side to side in the shallow muddy waters. Always a good start to the weekend.
One unusual sight Stephen had was that of a Harbour Porpoise swimming up the River Parrett.
It won’t be long before winter migrants drop in and starling numbers will ramp up, however for the next couple of weeks we will gladly continue to enjoy the current Indian Summer and balmy weather as we say goodbye to our summer birds.