This is a copy of Stuart Croft’s summary published on Birdguides. Stuart will be joining us on some of the bird cruises this winter. This year marked the fifth year of the Cirl Bunting Reintroduction Project — a joint venture between the RSPB, Paignton Zoo, the National Trust and Natural England to re-establish the Cirl Bunting in Cornwall. Male Cirl Bunting feeding a newly fledged chick (photo: Stuart Croft). The year saw a continued increase in the breeding population, which now stands […]

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

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!

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 […]

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 […]

National Nest box Week 2010 runs from 14-21 February Organised by the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), Britain’s leading bird research charity, NNBW aims to encourage people to put up nest boxes in their local area which will promote and enhance biodiversity and assist with the conservation of our breeding birds and wildlife. As urban and suburban gardens and woods become increasingly ‘tidy’, the natural nest sites on which many of our bird species depend, such as holes in trees […]

30 January 2010 We had a great trip on the river today – fantastic weather considering the forecast with only a short flurry of sleety snow, otherwise bright and sunny with that perfect clear light a northerly wind brings. Highlights were a total of 7 Spoonbills including two ringed birds; the juvenile that has been with us since November and a new one that is possibly the same bird that Nigel Climpson photographed on Kingsmill Lake last year. I’ll need […]