Guided Bird Watching Cruise – 5th November 2025

It was a full boat that set off up the Exe estuary under cloudy skies, but there was mercifully no rain. Our first birds on Pole Sands were Oystercatchers and Curlew, feeding on cockles in the gravel and sandy islands at the mouth of the estuary.

Passing behind Dawlish Warren, there were large numbers of Wigeon, Mallard and Brent Geese feeding on the mudflats around Shutterton Creek, but they were hard to see as they hid in the steep-sided creek. There were more Brent Geese on Bull Hill, allowing views of this winter visitor from both sides of the boat. There was a single Pale-bellied Brent Goose, a visitor from Svalbard and Greenland, amongst the more numerous Siberian Dark-bellied Brents, but it proved rather shy and hard to see.

In the fast-flooding channels were numbers of Shag, Cormorant and Great Crested Grebe, while just north of Starcross we saw Greenshank, Redshank and a single Snipe on the mud edge.

At Starcross Yacht Club we turned across the estuary towards Lympstone, encountering more grebes along the way, eventually totalling about twenty. On the east shore near Lympstone Commando was a flock of at least 100 Pintail, together with Mallard, Grey Herons and Little Egrets. Unusually, we saw our first Avocets south of the Turf Hotel, and there were various small parties from here up to Topsham, showing well at the water’s edge. I think we saw about seventy in all. A single Common Seal lolled on the mud, and gave prolonged views as we passed. We also saw the first Golden Plover of the autumn, huddled together on the drier mud, but the prize for Bird of the Day went to brightly plumaged immature Marsh Harrier, probably a male, that gave beautiful views as if flew down the salt-marsh opposite Topsham.

After turning around at Topsham and heading down into the wind and the flood tide, there were hundreds of Black-tailed Godwit & Redshank on the water’s edge, and we enjoyed a fly-past by a nice adult Mediterranean Gull. Reaching the bottom of the estuary, Shutterton Creek was full of water, and it was now possible to appreciate just how many Wigeon had been hiding in the creek earlier.

Peter Hopkin