River Regulars...

Every year for the past few years my father-in-law and myself have taken one of the post Christmas river cruises on the Exe in Devon. Today was that day for 2016 and despite a less than encouraging start to the weather the heavy rain cleared around 10am in Exmouth and the sun broke through. In fact as it turned out it was also one of the warmest trips we've ever done at this time of year - a spring-like 13 degrees no less!

The warmer weather was a little less good for bird numbers and variety than normal but we still had a great time getting wonderful views of the river regulars:

Some of Avocets on the river: R. Harris

One of my favourite birds, so elegant: R. Harris

Avocet: R. Harris

Great Northern Diver: R. Harris

Great Northern Diver: R. Harris

Brent Geese, lower numbers this year: R. Harris

Curlew: R. Harris

Pair of Red-Breasted Merganser. No trip
would be complete without these: R. Harris

Red-Breasted Merganser, female: R. Harris

...and the male

A single Common Seal on the sand banks

Young Shag, good numbers this year

We also saw three Goldeneye, around 40 Pintail, a few Greenshank and a very distant Slavonian Grebe - not to mention large numbers of Dunlin, a few Sanderling, 50 Pintail and reasonable numbers of Black-tailed Godwit. Not a bad way to spend 3 hours on a sunny January day.