Late springing

It's been a funny old patch here in Devon lately. The weather's oscillated between spells of glorious spring sunshine, when the butterflies and bees crowd the flowers and the birds frantically get on with either breeding or migrating, and patches of foul, blattering, cold rain where everything seems to batten down the hatches and take cover for the duration.

Because the weather's been so inconsistent - and I've discovered it's not as easy to be spontaneous with a small baby in the house - we've not been out ringing at all in April, so Sunday was a great opportunity to get out for the morning. Opening the car door, I was greeted by the sound of a Grasshopper Warbler reeling away steadily in the adjacent Rhos pasture like this (click the arrows to hear the song). I opened the nets to the sound of Blackcaps and a Garden Warbler making their presence known to their rivals, and the morning was spent ringing to the accompaniment of Willow Warblers (perhaps the sweetest of all the UK's summer sounds), a Redstart and a couple of Cuckoos. Being mid-spring, there wasn't much to ring, but a healthy number of Willow Warblers included at least two ringed as adults this time last year.

Bird of the day was, however, not even a bird, but a particularly fine female Adder, basking complacently on a Molinia tussock: she waited patiently until I'd taken a number of photos, then resumed her interrupted relaxation without batting an eyelid. Not that she could bat an eyelid, but I speak figuratively...

American Skunk-cabbage - a colourful addition to the local streams and as yet apparently without the drawbacks of things like Himalayan Balsam or Japanese Knotweed. It does, however, as the name suggests, smell quite rank.

A fully-open flower, wafting a gentle stench on the breeze

And this one's done the business. It's no coincidence that it seems to be pollinated by flies...

Garden Warbler

The star of the show!

A very good-looking snake indeed...

Bank holiday birds and bits

A quick roundup and some photos for the weekend of the May bank holiday.

Saturday. Up early to go ringing at Na's site on the moor-edge with Judith; caught some of the usual suspects for the site - Tree Pipit, Willow Warbler, Whitethroat, Yellowhammer and so on, but better was a pair of Song Thrushes, recaptured just over a year after they were first ringed. One had been ringed on-site, the other at Na's winter site, about a kilometer away. Nice to see some interchange between sites like that, even if it's pretty small-scale.

Adult Whitethroat

Sunday. Up early for a wander at Challacombe in the morning - partly to nose round a barn for our polterabend, and partly for some birding. The former was successful, provided we shovel some, erm, manure first. That'll be a fun task for those concerned! The strong NW wind argued against too much birding, so we took a hike and met friends for a picnic instead. That was fine, as we found up a pair of Dipper, a smart male Grey Wagtail wagging his way along the riverbank and a male Cuckoo singing away from the treetops. We then watched him fly across the valley to a clump of gorse, and emerge milliseconds later with a small bird in hot pursuit! Most entertaining...

Monday. Up early (notice a pattern here, folks?), we returned to Challacombe for a ringing session. We struck gold in a number of respects, with singing Redstarts, Garden Warblers and Cuckoos everywhere (maybe that's a minor exaggeration, but still...). Ringing turned up the goods as well - recapturing a female Redstart which was ringed as an adult there last year and no less than five Willow Warblers, two from last year and three from the year before last - not bad going for wee birds like that.

Adult male Redstart in my grubby mitt; photo by Na.

Bird of the day had to go to a cracking male Redstart who turned up in the nets, but sighting of the day came as follows:

We knew of a Dippers nest under a footbridge over the brook, so headed down there to check on the state of it - there were four eggs the week before, apparently. Judith and Na lowered themselves into the water to crawl under the bridge, when I noticed this, climbing the wall about a metre away from them:


...which then disappeared into a small hole in the bank, like so (memo to self: remember that, and don't go poking around in Dartmoor walls!)...

Adder, courtesy of Na's mobile phone - good thing one of us had a camera handy, eh?!

...and when we got to the nest, it was empty. Circumstantial evidence, I know, but it ain't half suggestive!

I'll sign off with another rather fine early-morning view from the house.