TO...YP

It's turned noisy in the garden now. The air is filled with a shrill insistent demanding whine, as recently-fledged Blue, Great and Coal Tits work a determined line along the trees and through the veg. The potatoes seem to be particularly favoured at the moment, which leads me to suppose that there is some sort of insect food to be had there - perhaps the aphids have found the potatoes themselves and are now being snacked on by the growing birds.

Moving out to the edge of the moors, and the situation is similar, though the number of birds out in the scrub is greater still. The addition of broods of Marsh, Long-tailed and Willow Tits, and the first fledgling Chiffchaffs, as well as a smattering of Robins makes the willow scrub echo with begging calls first thing in the morning. The grass has grown appreciably in the last month, and the first flowers of Creeping Soft-grass - Holcus mollis - are showing. Ragged-robin and Yellow Flag-iris raise patches of shocking pink and yellow flowers up above the green on occasion; the former is something of a magnet for Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary butterflies at the moment, creating an outrageous clash of vivid pink and orange which somehow seems to look perfect.

Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary amongst Ragged-robin. The butterfly is mid-way between meals, which is why it's not sharp.

Maturing Large Red Damsel. Everything's in the throes of growing up and/or breeding at present. It's a fabulous time of year.

The Pied Flycatchers are also fledging in the woods. One, or perhaps two, more visits and we'll be finished with them for the year - it's frightening how quickly the season goes in many respects. Nice to see that we've again had a good breeding season for them this year (so far!) and we can hope for a good number of returning birds next year, all things being equal.

Pied Flycatcher and young. The youngsters at this stage haven't yet got to their full feathered state, so look like a cross between gawky teenager and Sesame Street character.

Male House Sparrow framed amongst the remains of our old kitchen

Spring: Bluebells

It's spring, and the woods are alive with the sound of people cooing over the bluebells...

For once, a picture of bluebells that I'm reasonably happy with. Shaptor Woods, near Bovey Tracey, 16th May 2010.

We also headed out to Na's Pied Flycatcher boxes for her second visit of the season. Disappointingly, the numbers are down on last year (just), but a couple of females already sitting: one new, another ringed as an adult last year.

Anyone following the Black-headed Gull saga may be interested to know that the two Swedish-ringed birds proved to be from the same park in Malmo, one ringed in 2002, the other ringed in May 2005 - both last seen in Exeter at the end of January. I'll look out for them again this winter... always something to look forward to in life, eh?

More surveys, more birds

Well there you go. Final wader survey of the season today - a good thing when you've got to get up at 3.30 to be on site at the appropriate time! The Lapwing seem to be doing well - three pairs instead of the traditional one, with a thoroughly irritated Oystercatcher at the other end of the site. The influx of Painted Lady butterflies finally crossed my bows as well, with around 40 seen this morning. Made my way home via the singing Little Bittern over in Somerset, which was indeed singing in the reeds, yet not visible. Oh well - it's only a Little Bittern after all's said & done. More interesting than that was a female Scarce Chaser dragonfly hawking around just in front of the invisible bittern; another British tick, no less!

In the long period since previous blog (when was that? I've forgotten!), quite a lot has happened: we've begun planning our wedding and associated party - all going smoothly so far - we've been to the Isle of Man to visit friends and ring some Cormorants & Shags and I've learned a good selection of new plants. Always useful for work, that. I've also finally, finally - after 26 years of waiting - seen Red Kite in Devon. That made me quite happy too!

We also managed the most extraordinary weekend's ringing of Storm Petrels. Our usual tally has ranged from between 30 and 200 birds in a weekend; this year - with Nik away - we managed to get just shy of 500 new birds, with around 20 birds already ringed elsewhere: the jam, if you like. These ranged from British rings (the bulk of the jam; mixed fruit, to stretch the metaphor) to a Jersey-ringed bird (damson), a couple of French rings (strawberry), a Spanish ring (raspberry) and two Portuguese (home-made raspberry)... Topped off with a fine Basking Shark under the cliffs, it was a weekend worth having!

Some pictures from the various items of interest follow:

Dormouse extractions: lesson one. First take it's house off the tree - that'll fox it! By the way, a good way to tell if there's a Dormouse in a box is to check and see if it's left it's handkerchief hanging out of the door. They're always far too big.

Lesson two. Naomi extracts a Dormouse.

The resultant Dormouse. Bum view, though.

Cormorant on nest, Isle of Man

Cormoranettes in nest

Male Pied Flycatcher. This is one of the birds we ringed last year, back again for another season on Dartmoor's fringe. For some reason, they - and Naomi - seem to be media darlings this year, at least locally. She's been on the radio (twice), local papers and TV... Quite extraordinary!

Chaffinch - nest of. These were too big to ring, even had we had the necessary.

Basking Shark. No, really.

Storm Petrel. Well, Wild Carrot with Storm Petrel lurking behind it would be more accurate...

Piefls

http://www.bbc.co.uk/devon/content/articles/2009/05/15/pied_flycatcher_feature.shtml

Our local scheme...