A Week in Somerset - Pastures Old

A week down in Somerset wouldn't be the same without visiting Ham Wall (twice) and Shapwick Heath, plus a more touristic jaunt to Cheddar Gorge.

So some highlights from Ham Wall:

Another Grass Snake,

A Wren having a dust bath, never seen a Wren do that before.

A Bittern in a distant (and somewhat blurry!) fly by.

Female Blackcap,

a nice if somewhat hot walk.

There is a Water Rail hidden in there, honest!

Great Crested Grebe,

Great White Egret

and a Little Grebe.

Shapwick was very quiet, as it was hot and the hides were still closed, we sat on a bench for a while having a coffee, watching the activity on and around the lagoon by the tower hide.

First up was a bit of Royal Navy action, I'm guessing from RNAS Yeovilton, a Westland Lynx, this was followed a bit later by a Navy Merlin. Sadly not of the feathered variety 😏

On the left hand side of the water an Egret roost developed, with a Grey Heron being the King of the Castle and a Cormorant being left out on a limb.

It was nice to see a Great Crested Grebe still on a nest, this must be a second brood as I would have expected to see some cute Grebe humbugs at least.

Finally on the walk back after spotting a Hobby perched on a distant bare tree, this Jay posed for a moment.

So what about Cheddar Gorge? The main purpose of the visit was to see if there were on signs of Water Vole in the ponds, we have seen them before but the last time was in 2012, so we don't know if they are still there. No sign of them this time, but we did pick a new bird for the trip, a Grey Wagtail:

We also guess the Peregrines no longer nest in the Gorge, just some goats

and people.

We took a big step in Cheddar, we actually bought a coffee and sat outside on a terrace enjoying the view! Then we had the audacity to buy an ice cream no less! We drove out of Cheddar up the gorge and just took random turns, finding another spot to pull in and have another coffee (not bought!) in the Mendips. We parked adjacent Ubley Warren NR, a Somerset Wildlife Trust reserve, there was quite a bit of distant birding activity

So that's it apart from a few more pics from the garden of our cottage:

A Week in Somerset - Pastures New 2

So it's taken a while to continue what we got up to in Somerset, we have been up in Edinburgh visiting our wonderful daughter, much catching up (and drinking!) was done, but on with Somerset.

Our next new site (for us) was WWT Steart Marshes, about a 30 minute drive from where we were staying. In fact we visited twice as the first time the weather turned on us and we beat a hasty retreat. As for the reserve, hats off to the WWT. They had things well organised for social distancing, the hides were open, with hand gel at the entrances, seats 'roped' off so you couldn't get too close to one another and while we were in the hide we were politely evicted while one of the wardens came in and sprayed and wiped down. Brilliant! Even the toilets (one at a time) were open.

Having said that from the birding point of view it was quiet, but what can you expect in July. We did get a very distant Curlew Sandpiper, I did take some photos, but they were just a blurry dot, so not putting that up here!

We did get a noisy display from some Oysercatchers:

There were still quite a few Avocets about

and a Juvenile Peregrine stayed rooted to a fence post on the other side of the scrapes. There were also plenty of Hereon around:

Plus a male Reed Bunting giving it some welly!

There were quite a few Shelduck feeding the majority of them youngsters, but no longer ducklings.

Our plan was to the find the Black-winged Stilts over the other side of the reserve, as they would have been a first for us in the UK, but as we started out the wind got up and the rain started and as it was a fair walk to their nesting site, we decided to hold fire and come back in better weather. It wasn't the most productive day only 23 species seen, but Curlew Sandpiper and Skylark were our first for 2020.

As we drove away we looked at the map and thought we'd find somewhere on the coast for a late afternoon coffee, not knowing what we would find we picked Stolford, it took us about 15 minutes to get there by which time the weather had brightened again. Hey ho!

But what a cracking little spot, from up on the sea wall, with the tide out, we saw Curlew and Whimbrel, plenty of Oystercatchers and along the hedgerows behind us, Linnet, Twite, Goldfinch, Whitethroat, Wren, Starling and some House Sparrows. Then out in the bay there must have been circa 500 Shelduck bobbing about, way to many to count! The Whimbrel:

So a few days later in glorious sunshine we went back to Steart, there was not much to add from our first visit apart from the Black-winged Stilts, which were a long long way from the viewing platform, but at least we saw them.They were down among the Egrets so from this picture you can see how far away they were!

I'd much rather see them up close like we do in Lesvos, but sadly not this year. Perhaps next?

So just to finish this post and our visit to Steart, here are a few more photos:

Buzzard,

a Wall Butterfly,

Close up and personal with a Bull,

Mute Swans

and one of two Brown Hares to finish the day.

 

A Week in Somerset - Pastures New 1

Following the relaxation in rules we took the opportunity to book a weeks self-catering in Somerset just 15 minutes from RSPB Ham Wall and the Avalon Marshes. We were out and about a fair bit, visiting old haunts; RSPB Ham Wall, Shapwick Heath and Cheddar Gorge, but we also visited a couple of new places that we had never been to in the last 9 years since making Somerset one of our favourite birding places.

In this post I'll concentrate on those two, of course getting in to the second half of July the birding is a lot quieter as most of the birds are not singing so much and the adults are trying to regain some strength after looking after the young ones. So they are much more difficult to spot and find with some exceptions of course.

So I'll start with a visit to the Hawk and Owl trust reserve at Shapwick Moor, adjacent to Shapwick Heath. It's a cracking little reserve with two hides, the first is tiny overlooking the heath, the second much bigger with plenty of bird feeders and shrubbery. We saw very little from the first hide; Buzzard, Kestrel, Grey Heron, Tits, Robin and Dunnock, but it was a good spot on a hot day to have a coffee. There you go, third paragraph before I mentioned coffee! Of course at this time of year there were plenty of butterflies and dragonflies about, but not always the easiest thing to photograph.
Starting with butterflies; a Comma,

 Ringlet,

 a couple of Swallows,

a Speckled Wood,

 Meadow Brown,

 the view from the small hide, with a Buzzard perched on the tree stump and a Grey Heron to the left of the woodpile

 and a Red Admiral

 We talk the longest way around to the next hide through a flower meadow, this was quite good for Dragonflies and Poppies.

 Black-tailed Skimmer,

 Emperor,

 Gatekeeper,

 this could be a Ruddy Darter, but I'm not sure.

There was much more bird life at the second hide because of the feeder;
A female Pheasant hiding under a bush,

 Chaffinch,

 Chiffchaff,

  Wren,

 and Willow Warbler.

In addition we saw a couple of Great Spotted Woodpecker flying through, plus Blue and Great Tits. There were plenty of Brimstone butterflies and no people!

On the walk back to the car, we had a great sighting of a Grass Snake:

The highlight of the day!
Finally a few Whitethroat turned up while we had a bench stop. (No coffee!)

Back at our 'cottage' we sat outside enjoying the Sunshine, a glass of Wine for Tina and a cracking pint (or two)  of Swords & Sandals (IPA) from Spartan Brewery! (Took a 5 litre minikeg with us.

The garden was quite busy with Swift,

House Martins, Swallows, Buzzard, flying over and regular visits from Pied Wagtail,

and aircraft of all sorts!
P51D Mustang,

 Airbus A400,

 and a DHC Chipmunk!