Last Day of the First Month - Exmouth

Sunday 31st January fresh to strong W cloudy AM sunny intervals PM 13C

The final day of the first month starts at Bowling Green RSPB reserve near Topsham. Waders in large numbers are coming in from off the estuary as high tide approaches. Black-tailed godwits number around 800 with a few bar-tailed with them. There are also a couple of hundred avocet and smaller numbers of dunlin and redshank. They all take off together when first a sparrowhawk flies along a hedgreow and then a female merlin does likewise.

I still need to find the Bonaparte's gull and with the weather nothing like the heavy rain forecast I cycle to Exmouth. Along the way another cyclist, Max joins me and we cycle together for a couple of miles. He talks of his job and of his two young children.

I spend a few hours along the seafront in Exmouth checking every gull as the tide recedes.

There are very few gulls though and around 4:30pm I head off for a nearby country hostel. Reaching it I am greeted by two Midlanders acting as managers of the complex. One has a coffee in her hand which is in an Aston Villa mug, my own football team sadly.

11.12 miles 497 feet elevation up 430 feet elevation down

So the day ends. Monthly statistics:-

Green Year list 146 birds

Number of birds not seen in 2015 3

Mileage 723.56 miles

average mileage on days cycled 27.83 miles

elevation up 40,184 feet

elevation down 40,344

best birds :

great white egret x 10

hoopoe

grey phalarope

lesser scaup

cattle egret

glossy ibis

American wigeon

smew

Red-necked grebe

great northern diver x 22

Firecrest  x 2

Black-throated diver x 6

Ring-billed gull

Rose-coloured starling

slavonian grebe