An Osprey....at last!

This morning I checked Birdguides to see that an Osprey had been at Bowling Green Marsh earlier, but had flown off just after 8am. I didn't check again for a while, only to find that it had returned shortly after with a fish. It was almost 10am by then, but I grabbed the bins & scope & drove over there with my fingers crossed (but always remember, two hands correctly on the wheel at all times. Ed).

I had a brief stop in the hide, no Osprey, but lots of Black-tailed Godwit, Curlew & Redshank, a couple of Bar-tailed Godwit, quite a few Knot & a couple of Ringed Plover. There was a Spotted Redshank in there somewhere, but I didn't see it. I went off to the platform, again no sign of the Osprey. I then went down to the Goatwalk with Keith who had seen the Osprey on its two earlier visits, hoping that he would be lucky again. It worked! We had been looking for a little while when he spotted a small blob in the top of a tree on the far side of the estuary. It was miles away & we watched it for some time before it moved to give us a good view of its lovely white head & black eye stripe! A UK tick for me! A closer view would have been nice, but I'm not complaining!

The Osprey is in a tree on the far side of the estuary.....honest!

We watched it for well over an hour, pointing it out to a couple of other birders & numerous passing non-birders who wondered what we were all squinting at. It was attacked by a couple of gulls, but didn't budge. Then, just as Keith was leaving, the bird finally decided it was peckish & flew down the estuary towards Dawlish Warren. For about 15 minutes we watched it flying over the estuary between Lympstone, Dawlish Warren & Powderham before it flew down & grabbed a fish. It started heading back straight for us & we were hopeful that it would bring its lunch back to the derek at BGM where it had breakfasted earlier, but instead it landed on a mudbank to eat. Oh well, never mind.....I was happy anyway!

I haven't posted for a while, not because I haven't been out, but because I haven't really seen much. On 27th I was at BGM but didn't see a lot.On 28th it was Buddleigh where I decided to try a spot of seawatching. I went to the recently revamped shelter, where at one stage there were 5 of us. Great, I thought.   As a seawatching beginner it would be nice to know what I was looking at if I struggled with identifying any shearwaters or skuas that happened along. I'm sure it would have worked, only no birds actually passed by! I was there for 2 hours & only saw a couple of Manx Shearwaters! I should have been there a few days earlier when they saw all sorts.

Nice view, shame there were no birds!

On 30th I was back at BGM in the morning & saw the Spotted Redshank & 2 Wood Sandpiper. The Osprey was there in the afternoon! 

I saw more things flying on 31st, only they didn't have wings. We had a day out at the Great Dorset Steam Fair, which was very entertaining.

Monster trucks did their stuff....

... as did the White Helmets

Simon was a happy chappy talking old bikes....

...and checking out the old trucks.

Including: Fodens (S23s etc), Scammell Expolorers in heavy recovery, military tank recovery and general heavy haulage trim (and a Routeman in the main arena pulling a single axle Taskers low-loader trailer loaded with a drag line light crane)  , Leyland Hippos and a number of American Macks (from Holland, interestingly).  There were some Guys displaying the famous Indian Chief radiator badge (very rare) and a nice Ford Transcontinental tractor unit from the 1970s.  There was also a Leyland Marathon tractor unit (the type featured in Destination Doha , A BBC, World About Us documentary, Circa 1973) powered by a Rolls Royce 220 and with a Fuller, range-change gearbox.  The axlecould not been confirmed as a David Brown, so we didn`t count it. Ed

Year List now on 201 plus 2 sub-species.