Colyton Wildlife
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I'm Tim White and I'm a blogger since 2010. My blogs are Colyton Wildlife and Artistic Photography. Colyton Wildlife is a blog about wildlife and photography, mostly in and around the Axe valley and Artistic Photography is a blog that includes various informative articles completely based on photography content.
Colyton Wildlife
5M ago
Some rather enjoyable Sunday gulling!
Not something I necessarily foresaw myself writing when I first got into birds over 20 years ago, but this year I've easily spent more time scouring gulls than any other group of birds. With the dodgy weather I thought I'd chance a visit to Tower Hide between deliveries, and aimed for low tide. However, with all the floodwater the river was pretty full, hardly any mud, and essentially no gulls; they were on nearby fields instead. As the tide was coming in, the water level gradually dropped (floodwater clearing made a much bigger difference than the incomin ..read more
Colyton Wildlife
6M ago
Monday: HUGE display of Northern Lights visible UK-wide
Tuesday: 2 Glossy Ibis briefly visit BHM
Thursday: Caspian Gull on the estuary
Friday: Barred Warbler (found by Tim Clark).
I couldn't get to Colyford Common until 17:30 ish, and got frustrating views of its rear end disappearing into the bushes not long after I arrived. 18:05 and I got a superb view of it, quite fortunate though as my position a bit further away from the hedge was the only spot where it was possible to see amongst the branches, and if my bins weren't already pointing at that exact spot, I'd likely have missed it. I ..read more
Colyton Wildlife
6M ago
It finally happened. I've checked the gulls countless times recently trying to pick out something decent, and have done okay with a few YLGs, but this afternoon had a much nicer prize in store. A stunning Caspian Gull. I've not seen many, but instantly this bird jumped out at me as 'Casp' despite being mostly hidden in the gull flock. Closer inspection had me a little more conservative as the bill looked dinky at times, but otherwise it felt good to me. I popped a quick message to Steve Waite as he's our most experienced Casp-er here and he wasn't completely convinced it was pure either based ..read more
Colyton Wildlife
6M ago
I have a heap of bird stuff to catch up with on here, and had a couple of Glossy Ibis put in a brief appearance at Black Hole Marsh tonight too! This post has to be about the Northern Lights though. The huge solar activity in 2023 continues; this is the 5th time I've seen aurora locally this year, and 3 of those displays were extreme.
It was raining when I headed out, and activity had died down significantly but I had to chance it. Bloody good job I did too because at 02:50am on Monday September 25th, this happened ..read more
Colyton Wildlife
9M ago
Well the news is out! We had a pair of Avocets prospecting an island on BHM in May, and mating regularly. Come the start of June, they were taking it in turns to sit on the nest, one more than the other, so I figured all being well we'd get chicks somewhere between 24th and 27th. Sure enough, the first 2 hatched on 26th, and a 3rd on 27th! An adult did go and sit on the nest again after the 3rd hatched, so perhaps there's another yet to come, time will tell ..read more
Colyton Wildlife
11M ago
The year that keeps on giving. I popped to BHM between deliveries on Wednesday evening and had a quick look (mainly listen, they were very vocal) for the 4 Wood Sands that had been found by Sue S earlier. As I was leaving to head back out for deliveries, I spotted 2 ducks flying in from the south, and a quick look through the bins had me thinking possibly Pochard. Pochard are decent here, and the initial views were far from ideal but they came a bit closer and pics soon confirmed.
We've had a few more over the years, but these were only the 2nd and 3rd Pochards I've seen on patch here. I ..read more
Colyton Wildlife
1y ago
A bird that most of the local patchers have been in search of for a while now given the recent influx, but it was Steve Waite who came up with the goods and found a Night Heron. It was nice to watch it on Borrow Pit island before it flew south and into the mist, calling. Obscured for pics but it doesn't matter, I was just pleased to see one; my first that isn't captive. Cheers Steve!
What a year we're having for local rarities ..read more
Colyton Wildlife
1y ago
Another quick, showery dash to BHM after work proved fruitful with an LRP and Ringed Plover there, later joined by another LRP picked up initially on call (same as yesterday, nice that they announce themselves). I wonder if these are the same 2 I had yesterday morning, or another 2 plus the Ringo... The Black-winged Stilt was still showing, albeit about as far away as possible whilst still actually being on BHM itself.
A march up to Coly Common yielded 2 Swan Geese (what's the origin?) and 9 Whimbrel, my 1st of the Spring.
And to bring some life to this quick post, here's another image o ..read more
Colyton Wildlife
1y ago
WHAT A STUNNER!
A BirdGuides alert went out at 12:53 on Sunday 16th saying Black-winged Stilt at Seaton Marshes, so mild panic ensued, especially as I had Olivia (my daughter) to myself and she was approaching nap time. I didn't see the report for a few mins, but alerted the locals ASAP knowing that some would likely be able to get there before me. Steve was first on scene and sure enough, a stonker of a Black-winged Stilt was on Black Hole Marsh.
It's a bird we've been long overdue here. There've been several fairly close either side of our patch, and with this influx this year, chances ..read more
Colyton Wildlife
1y ago
Whilst primarily a birding blog, I just have to post this. Aurora Borealis is rarely seen, to any extent, from my latitude near the south coast in East Devon. There was a truly exceptional level of activity on the night of Thursday 23rd into Friday 24th March, caused by a CME (coronal mass ejection) a few days prior.
Long story short, I stayed up the entire night (then went to work, ~ 41 hours awake straight), and took images that I never thought would be possible near home, the like of which have almost certainly never been taken here before.
I have a lot of images to go through but t ..read more