With temperatures hitting -9 out in the sticks last week and plenty to do at home I’ve been somewhat less than motivated to go out birding recently. A seemingly very showy rare Isabelline Wheatear down the M5 in Devon did, however, motivate me to get off my backside and go out for a day’s birding on Wednesday.
I’ve seen a few Izzy’s, as birders sometimes call them, in Africa where they overwinter but just one in the UK in Norfolk a few years back. Until comparatively recently they were considered great rarities, the second edition of Collins guide to UK and European birds published in 2009 lists it as a three star mega. But, as the great man said, “the times they are a changing” and it has become more or less an annual vagrant to the UK such that BBRC now lists 52 accepted records. Its habitat is steppe and open countryside and it breeds in southern Russia and central Asia to northern Pakistan wintering in Africa and northwestern India.
The location, Colyford Common nature reserve, is just over a two hour drive from home and a fairly lazy start to the day and a journey break for coffee had me parking in the recommended Seaton Wetlands car park at 10:30. Seaton Wetlands comprises an area of marshland and reedbeds next to the River Axe, between Sidmouth and Lyme Regis. It is well equipped with 5 excellent bird hides and a Discovery Hut with lots of useful info. The site is quite large with some 4km of flat and easy going trails and broadwalks. From the car park a very pleasant 20 minute walk on the trail through the wetlands took me to a long flat broadwalk across the marsh where the Izzy was located.
When I arrived there were perhaps 20 birders looking at the Izzy foraging for invertebrates out on the marsh. It often took the characteristic upright Izzy stance checking out its admirers and its surroundings. Autumn birds can be quite tricky to separate from the common Northern Wheatear and indeed this bird was first reported as its common cousin. Through the scope I was able to pick up its distinguishing features, a deep black alula on the edge of its wing, a white supercilium that stretches right down to the beak and , in flight, a broad black terminal tail band.
In common with other rare Wheatears I have seen, see here and here for example, the Izzy was very confiding and eventually came very close giving its admirers excellent views. Come early afternoon it flew from the marsh and landed on the broadwalk equidistant between two groups of birders. It then repeatedly disappeared under the broadwalk before returning with its latest catch.
On these short winter days it is easy to try and cram in too much so I decided to stay and enjoy my Izzy till the light started to fade rather than try for a rare Olive-backed Pipit some 30 minutes away. I have seen four of these Pipits before in the UK and my decision was vindicated by the pipit not been seen at all on Wednesday.
Footnote – my blogs are posted with sometimes rather imaginative spelling and grammar due to my extreme dyslexia!
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