There's nae birds in August.

All good birdwatchers know that it goes extremely flat for birds in August.

All the birds have done their stuff, raised their young; are in mid-moult or are in eclipse.

No need for them to sing to protect their territories, just some parenting duties to attend to and to keep their head down in silence. Most of the birds are still with us, but you’d never guess that as the countryside is deathly quiet.

On top of that we’ve had a heatwave when all self-respecting birds (and birding guides) hide in the shade. We then had the thunderstorms and the flash floods that followed.

So, on the back of all that I set out with some trepidation with four guests for a couple of days birdwatching thinking that there may well be “Nae birds in August”, but I had agreed to give it a go.

Our first stop on the Levels brought a delightful grouping of four Yellow Wagtails jumping around at the hoofs of some dozy cattle along with a good number of Lapwings. A Little Egret stalked one of the nearby rhynes (ditches) and further along the moor two cattle egrets were doing what cattle egrets do at the edge of a field.

At Somerset Wildlife Trust’s flagship reserve Westhay Moor, I was pretty confident that there would be something to see – there always is – and I wasn’t disappointed. A Great White Egret flew over the carpark and Great Crested Grebes quietly fed their now quite large offspring. A gathering of Gadwalls were bobbing around too, but their normally dapper grey plumage was not quite as dapper as with most ducks at this time of year they are in mid-moult which is known as being in eclipse.

Great White Egret

Overhead a Marsh Harrier cruised, a Little Grebe bobbed up and under the water like a cork, Coots squabbled, and an unseen Water Rail squealed. We missed out on Kingfisher and the Bearded Tits that had seemingly been seen just before we arrived, but that’s how it goes with birdwatching.

We continued to Catcott Lows hide, which admittedly was dead – dead that is aside from about 150 Cattle Egrets (Ah, that’s where they were….) and a hovering Kestrel.

Travelling over the vast Somerset mountain range of the Polden Hills we saw many Swallows and several House Martins – but just a single Swift as most Swifts will likely have started to migrate south by mid-August.

After lunch in King Alfred the Great’s favourite pub, for a dollop of culture we visited nearby Athelney the site where the good King ‘Burnt the Cakes’. We saw large groups of Starlings and more Swallows gathering on the wires around the smart redbrick farmhouse, along with a flock (a charm) of Goldfinches and a bush-full of House Sparrows. Above us circled a couple of Buzzards.

We were on a roll… and before long we had four Common Cranes in the centre of our telescope showing very well indeed – with that “does my bum look big in this” look about them!

For good measure and to remind us of our love for them we saw several very smart Grey Herons – who needs egrets when we have such a wonderful bird like a Grey Heron.

We saw another dozen Cranes in the distance from a woodland vantage point and we sat for 20 minutes in complete silence in the heart of the wood in an open hide ‘Forest Bathing’ as I think the Japanese call it. I could have nodded off! It was bliss.

The next morning, we were off to the coast, and before we were a mile from home a Hobby flew over being chased by a group of Swallows – boom! Nice one….

Not to be out done, 10 minutes later at the Huntspill River – boom! a Peregrine was overhead!

Two cronking ravens, Dunnock and female Blackbird.

Down at the Sluice overlooking an incoming tide at the River Parrett estuary we saw many Redshank, Curlew, Shelducks and a single Black-tailed Godwit which was having a good old snooze, with its long straight bill tucked under his wing. At this point my 10-year-old, sharp-eyed, Luxembourgian guest spotted a most handsome male Kingfisher sitting on a rail right below where we were standing – good lad. That boy will go far in conservation – mark my words!

On a sand-spit/mudbank was a group of gulls - mostly Herring and Black-headed, but with Lesser Black-backed and the odd monster Great black-backed in the area too – but I ask you, who can honestly get excited by gulls?

On the far bank of the river a Kestrel landed on an old log right next to a passage Wheatear on its way south – which surprisingly seemed completely unperturbed by the small falcon.

At the mouth of the estuary was the usual vast numbers of Shelduck which gather at this time of year to moult (there can be up to 5000 ducks here from all over the South-west of UK/Ireland, and I believe Dutch birds come over for good measure too). We also saw Oystercatchers and the obligatory cormorants and the (unloved?) Canada Geese. Walking back along the sea wall we could see a larger flock of Godwits and a flock of around 50 Ringed Plovers gave us a fly-past- which was nice.

Back at the van our first three Greenfinches wheezed their call high on a dead elm.

 Driving to Bridgwater a male Sparrowhawk was harassed by a tailwind of Hirondelles.

Round at Steart Marshes, I would love to say it was rammed with waders – but it wasn’t.

I love to say it was full of rare wildfowl – but is wasn’t - it often is.

The hundreds of Avocets had disappeared, no Little ringed Plover, and there wasn’t a single warbler to be seen or heard other than the grunting of a single Reed Warbler trying to keep its brood safe and together.

Other than the odd Little Egret and an obliging group of x3 Kestrels (probably a recently fledged family group) there was very little going on at Steart – which in fairness was a first. It is hard to believe that in just a few weeks these lagoons will be overflowing with Lapwings and hundreds of Golden Plovers and any number of interesting waders, godwits, and sandpipers. Such is birdwatching.

A quick visit to the coast at Wall Common (just to prove that Somerset does have a coastline - we do actually it stretches for some 40 miles from Weston Super Mare to Minehead - we saw more Ringed Plover on the water’s edge with a sprinkling of Dunlin which had returned from their nesting grounds in the far north of Sutherland and Caithness, and the Northern Isles.

During our last few hours of the afternoon, we headed into the Quantocks for a quiet walk through the beautiful Atlantic oak woods near the picturesque village of Holeford. While at first, we thought it was going to be birdless, soon we saw a smart drumming Great Spotted Woodpecker, Coal Tits, Goldcrests, Long-tailed Tits and a family of x4 Grey Wagtails on the brook running along the floor of the coombe.

Grey Wagtail

But Hodder’s Coombe is not just about the birds, it is about the trees, the atmosphere, the insects, and the other inhabitants of this very special place – we saw a beautiful Roe buck tiptoeing through the undergrowth. We saw a Treecreeper and a Wood Warbler, but no sign of the Pied Flycatchers that nested in boxes just a couple of months ago – are they gone already? Or were they still in the canopy out of sight camouflaged in their black and white plumage?

We huffed and puffed right to the end of the coombe and up on to the heath proper bedecked in purple heather and yellow gorse – wouldn’t you just love a jumper with that mix of colours? Distant Ravens, dark clouds, then a flash of sunshine.

A family of Stonechats were soon located followed by our first Redstart – we were on a roll again. More Stonechats, more Redstarts, and a spectacular performance from a single Spotted Flycatcher which sat on a branch and flew up to snatch an insect before landing on the same branch to then repeat the action. Green Woodpeckers flew by yaffling as they went.

In front of us stretched the Bristol Channel with its islands and the largest building site in Britain, home to the largest crane in the world (Big Karl) at Hinkley C Nuclear Power Station. There was the Parrett estuary, Steart Marshes, and the Somerset Levels beyond – in the hazy distance we could even see Glastonbury Tor, that iconic landmark of Somerset.

Our unscientific and unconfirmed tally for the two days was somewhere around 55-60 different species – so who says there’s nae birds in August?!