This is the first Newletter for the St Georges Island Gull Project. It includes an update of the project and details of all the sightings so far including two in Guernsey and one in France. Newsletter Oct 2010

At 9am this morning whilst wandering up the garden to let the chickens out I heard a chiffchaff-like call from the sycamores in the lane. I went back for my bins and lo and behold, what should be flitting around but a diminutive Yellow browed Warbler. It flicked across to the hawthorn tree above me and then proceeded to leaf-bathe in the heavy dew and preen. I went in and woke Chris and went back to check the bird was […]

Spoonbills are back on the River Tamar. Mike Beer reported 5 on the saltmarsh at Kingsmill Lake yesterday morning (14th October), one of which was colour ringed on the left leg, red over green over yellow. It could be a French bird but I’ll confirm this in the next few days. If you haven’t booked a place on our first cruise already, make sure you do soon to get a front seat to see these birds!

Malta has been shamed yet again by its illegal bird hunters, who have blasted a number of Spoonbills this week which were passing through the islands on migration from Europe to Africa. A flock of 22 Spoonbills were observed roosting in the north of Malta, but horrified birdwatchers scanning the flock the following morning saw that three of them had blood-soaked feathers after being shot by illegal hunters. Of the original 22 birds, only nine continued their journey to Africa, […]

We are pleased to be able to announce that we are running six trips this winter. Dates and times are on the Bird Watching Cruises page at the top of the screen. Early booking is advised as we are restricted by the tide times this year and it is unlikely that we can put on extra boats. Hopefully the Spoonbills will be back. If you have been on a trip with us before and your details are unchanged you can […]

After all the concerns about the weather we   were treated to another wonderful trip up the river on Sunday. It was a bit damp to start with but soon dried up and we even saw some sunshine!! Most noticable was the lack of Avocets. Only 12 were found; but last week I saw nearly 500 on the River Exe. I assume they started their migration early and will stop off at suitable sites like the Exe and Poole Harbour on […]

‘SPRINGWATCH TAMAR’ RIVER CRUISE Sunday 11 April 2010 Sailing from Plymouth Mayflower Steps at 12.30pm and Saltash Town Quay at I.15pm. Cost: Adults £12.00, Children [minimum 6 years old] £7.00 We have teamed up with the Tamar Valley Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty as part of their Spring Festival, for a whole afternoon cruise up the Rivers Lynher and Tamar and hopefully for the first time, the River Tavy. Although the winter waders and wildfowl will have left for their […]

Click on the link to read an interesting paper on Spoonbill feeding ecology. Bill Sweeping in Spoonbills

We were blessed with another fine day to enjoy the sights and sounds of the river. As usual we headed upstream from Saltash seeing good numbers of  Curlew and Wigeon, several Grey Heron’s, 2 Red breasted Mergansers and a Little Egret but then became firmly lodged on a cockle bank. This gave us good opportunity to watch a hundred or so foraging Avocet, compare Black-tailed and Bar tailed Godwit  and the various gulls and a Merlin flew across the river […]

The latest update from Otto in the Netherlands provides data on the well travelled bird we saw on the last boat cruise print date :09-02-10 ——————————————————————————————————- Working group Spoonbills International ——————————————————————————————————– species     :Eurasian Spoonbill (Platalea leucorodia leucorodia) 7325/107906 colourrings :LYL/RYfa       ringing place:NL  Den Oever, Banaan 5256N-0502E metalringnr :NLA .8050697    ringing age :nestling ringing date:29-07-09               sexe :unknown ——————————————————————————————————– date             country and site or reserve                              observer            days         dist […]