Guided Bird Watching Cruises 28th Feburary 2025

It was a beautiful afternoon to be out on the estuary, with clear skies, bright sunshine and a
gentle south-easterly breeze. The new moon combined and high atmospheric pressure
brought a very low tide which held us up at Starcross for a while, but we had a grand time of
it all the same, enjoying the lovely weather and good views of a very satisfying range of
birds.

Highlights included a neat Spotted Redshank at Topsham, the long-staying North-American
Long-billed Dowitcher at its usual spot by Turf Lock and a Great Northern Diver on our way
back that surfaced right by the boat. I don’t know who was more surprised: the Diver or us!
Cormorants and Shags, many in smart breeding condition, showed very well as did a good
number of Shelducks (mostly paired up now), Brent Geese and all the usual Gulls including
lots of Common, at least one Lesser Black-backed and several mighty Greater Black-
backed. A few Grey Herons were on their nest in the trees behind Starcross sailing club and
we also saw Little Egrets out fishing in the shallows and over a dozen distant Cattle Egrets
with the Fallow Deer at Powderham.

Pushing up past Turf we encountered great skirling flocks of Dunlin, hundreds strong,
wheeling around in the sunshine and we also had a lovely flypast of over 200 Black-tailed
Godwits, a few of which were showing the beginnings of their lovely orange breeding finery.
There were Bar-tailed Godwits too, plus Grey Plovers, Sanderlings, Redshanks,
Greenshanks, Turnstones and a couple of Avocets. Ducks included lots of Teal, over 50
Pintail and a dozen or so handsome Red-breasted Mergansers. All in all it was a very
enjoyable afternoon!

Andy Smith