Just come back from a few days down there on a bus trip. I spent Saturday and Sunday on a three hour boat trip up the estuary to Topsham from Exmouth, a local birder was on board to help point out some of the different species. There are quite a lot of birds that winter in the estuary and here is a list of what we saw, just a pity we couldn’t get close enough for shots of the smaller birds and most of the others wanted to get away from the boat as it went up the channels.

List:- Cormorant, Shag, Crow, Black Headed Gull, Gt BB Gull, Less BB Gull, Common Gull, Herring Gull, Red-fronted Goose, Brent Goose, Mute Swan, Little Egret, Sanderling, Knot, Dunlin, Grey Plover, Curlew, Redshank, Spotted Redshank,Greenshank, Oystercatcher, Avocet, Mallard, Teal, Wigeon, Bar Tailed Godwit, Black Tailed Godwit, Turnstone, Gt Crested Grebe, Slavonian Grebe, Goldeneye, Shellduck, Red Breasted Merganser and on Sunday a Peregrine turned up to cause confusion amongst the waders but at least that brought them closer to to boat to get a few shots. 2 Common Seals. We were told that on the estuary there are about 4-500 Avocet, 500 Black Tailed Godwit, c300 Bar Tailed Godwit, Large flocks of Dunlin.

Now some pics, hope you like them.

Red Breasted Merganser

Shag

Cormorant

Red Breasted Goose

Goldeneye

Curlew

Dunlin

Bar and Black Tailed Godwit

Avocet