An old-friend revisited

In January 2022 I took a trip to north Somerset to try for a lifer. It was a Kentish plover which had been visiting the beach at Burnham-on-sea. It was a bird that had been ringed in Germany and spent most of the Winter there. It has now returned to the exact same spot. With a day in Weymouth on Thursday to sort out the central heating I decided to combine seeing this with a few other birds on the way down. I got to Burnham about 7.30, just as the light was coming up. Its an easy twitch, park up on the promenade and scan the mud flats. 

The tide was pretty low but there were a  number of dog walkers on the beach. It took me about 10 minutes to locate the flock of ringed plovers who were just about waking up. I guess there were around 40 birds. At least the elevation of the promenade meant that I could see down into the gulleys. I was joined by another birder which was good as two pairs of eyes are always better than one. Quite quickly we got onto the KP, seemingly still asleep as the back of the beach. It is the bird on the right in the photo below.

Cropping in very heavily you can see the rings on its legs.

I didn't go down onto the beach and risk flushing it for the sake of a better photo so everything is at a fair old distance. The best one I got is below, again a really big crop. You can see how it stands out from the common ringed plovers plovers though. Much lighter on the back with no black-banding. It's also smaller and more delicate. I stayed for about 45 minutes and it never really moved much so I packed up and headed off for my next target.

My next stop was at Shapwick Heath, next to Ham Wall on the Somerset levels. It was only a 30 minute drive. The target this time was a drake American wigeon, which had been on the site since the turn of the year. It was only a 5 minute walk to the tower hide from where the bird had been hanging out with a large flock of its European cousins.

It was a quite discrete pool though to check out and there was another birder in the hide to give me a hand. It was mainly wigeons mallards, tufted duck and teal.

Despite scanning the flock three or four times I couldn't see the American wigeon anywhere. It was a male, and should have stood out with a green rather than brown/ russet head. Finally my companion said he had found it, not on the water with the other birds but asleep on the bank, almost out of sight from where we were. 

With a bit of judicious movement in the hide you could get an angle where it was relatively clear to see.

It is the bird in the middle with the dark head. There is a nice contrast with the Eurasian wigeon with their russet heads and golden crown. For the hour or so I was there it barely woke or moved. Just a couple of times something disturbed it but it quickly went back to sleep again!!!!

I didn't spend too long walking the rest of the reserve but as ever on the levels there were great-white egrets and marsh harriers all over the place and a bittern was booming away in the reed bed.

By the car park a flock of 6 to 8 bullfinches were feeding in the bushes, wheezing away. They mainly stayed high and hidden but a couple of times a big fat male showed itself.

I will discretely pass over my next stop, dipping the rosy-coloured starling in a housing estate in Wiveliscombe, on my way down to Lyme Regis for the regular and resident dipper. 

They live on a small steam running down into the town, accessed from the end of Anning Road. I've been seening them here for years and I guess they are one of the easiest to see. With it being a relatively busy footpath by the side they are also pretty tolerant of people! One was fishing actively in the steam when I was there.

In the last of these photos you can see its white eyelid coming down!

I finished the day with a trip to Wyke Regis where I managed to find the long-staying Richard's pipit. No photos as it was constantly disturbed by the dog walkers but it flew over me a couple of times calling.

A great if tiring day with 5 year ticks and some quality birds in there as well.  Takes me up to 150 BOU but no lifers yet.