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 […]

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 […]

On the Dec. 13th Tamar cruise a Spoonbill was observed with the following colour rings. Left Leg- light green over yellow over light green Right leg- Red over yellow flag over metal. Otto Overdijk of the Dutch Spoonbill Workng Group replied to the request for information with the following news: ‘Indeed, now I can identify this bird. A juvenile bird ringed at Den Oever 29/7/2009 ( just North from Amsterdam, Wadden Sea Coast Lat 52.934N Lon 5.031E ) This is a […]

Dennis Gilman sent me these photos that he digiscoped at Pennington Marshes, near Lymington, Hampshire on 4 May 2008. From the colour ring combination it was confirmed to be one of the birds seen earlier on the River Lynher and was presumably on its way back to the Netherlands.