DEVON WEEKEND BREAK - SATURDAY MARCH 1ST 2014

BOWLING GREEN MARSH, TOPSHAM - EXMOUTH, EXE ESTUARY AND 'AVOCET' RIVER CRUISE ON THE EXE.

It really felt like spring had begun, it was a beautiful sunlit morning, not a whiff of air and bird song everywhere. We ate a superb breakfast at 7am - I refused a 'full-English' of course!

So our day started as we left the hotel at 8am and headed for Topsham a short drive away. We parked near the station and set off on foot to the water meadow known as Bowling Green Marsh.

in the hide at Bowling Green Marsh

view from the hide

We viewed the marsh from various gaps in the hedgerow and from hide where we saw a nice section of wildfowl and waders. It was hide tide so many waders were roosting on the edge of the large pool, a few hundred Black-tailed Godwits were joined by fewer numbers of Bar-tailed Godwits, Dunlin, Greenshank, Redshank, Avocet and a few Eurasian Curlew.

Wildfowl were present in good numbers too, Eurasian Wigeon were the most numerous but good numbers of Eurasian Teal and Northern Shoveller were also seen. A few Tufted Duck were diving with Common Pochard and Little Grebes.

 

Common Redshank above Little Egret below

Pandemonium broke loose when a Peregrine Falcon flew into the meadow, it missed all the waders and flew off fast. We found common species in the hedgerows and added Long-tailed Tit, Eurasian Tree-creeper and a Great-spotted Woodpecker drummed in the distance.

We walked round to river Exe and walked along "Goat Walk' which had been partly destroyed by the recent storms. From there we added Ruddy Turnstone and a few gulls.

Our next stop was at the river mouth at Exmouth, we scanned the beach area and the low tide had exposed many sand banks. We saw a Great Northern Diver, European Shag, Oystercatcher and lots of the species seen at Topsham.


looking from Goat Walk to the river Exe

The rest of the afternoon was spent on the river cruise, it clouded over and got quite cold but that didn't lessen our enjoyment, it was fantastic. We had a great time seeing many species at close quarters, we increased our day list up to 61 which additions including: Red-breasted Merganser, Slovenian Grebe, Grey Plover, Spotted Redshank and many more.



on board during the Avocet Cruise

We got off the boat at 4pm, cold but happy with our sightings. A short stop was made on the way back to the hotel to look at a Peregrine Falcon which sat on the tower of the town church, it looked great in the scope.

So we returned to the hotel around 5:15pm in good time for dinner at 7:30pm which was another superb meal.