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 […]

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 […]