Appealing to my enjoyment of words and wordplay, I have had look into some of the abbreviations and nicknames used by serious ornithologists and there’s a list of some of them here, some more pleasing than others.
In my head at least I have started using one or two of them myself. I learnt from Nick Acheson, our tour leader in Norfolk, ‘barwit’ and ‘blackwit’ for Bar-tailed and Black-tailed Godwits, and I think Mike came out with ‘spotfly’ for the Spotted Flycatcher we saw on Day 2.
Day 3 was a very good day for birds, beginning on Dartmoor. It is very beautiful there but as George Monbiot puts it, it is also sheepwrecked. Chris Packham won no friends in the farming community with this damning piece in The Guardian:
As he says, it is an ecological disaster zone and our taxes have paid for it. Farming here makes a loss and only subsidies sustain it. Nevertheless I enjoyed seeing the ponies and these Scottish Blackface (?) sheep. A couple of us saw a Weasel too, another first for me.
We saw Stonechats, male, female and juvenile Redstarts and this Meadow Pipit and heard a Raven, a Stock Dove and a Nuthatch. We also caught sight of a Dark Green Fritillary.
This is the female Redstart by her nest.
I was pleased to learn from Rita that a stream in this part of the world is known as a leat and a bridge like this is called a clapper.
We stopped elsewhere in hope of more birds but the heat was absolutely relentless and the birds were not showing and we were defeated and adjourned for lunch.
Next up was the RSPB’s Bowling Green Marsh Nature Reserve at Topsham. A walk through the village revealed it to be full of beautiful houses and no doubt extremely wealthy people. We spent most of our time in a hide watching the waders and other avifauna – I was in my element. Teal, Moorhen, Lapwing (the one shown below looking rather raggedy), Whimbrel, Grey Heron, Black-tailed Godwits looking especially resplendent in strikingly reddish plumage, Dunlin, Green Sandpiper, Redshank, Spotted Redshank, Little Egret, Black-headed Gulls and Jackdaws galore and a flock of between fifty and sixty Curlews.
I rather regret now that I did not join the evening’s excursion back to Aylesbeare Common – I was tired and failing to resist a second large Merlot didn’t help. I missed better sightings of Dartford Warblers, Nightjars and a beautiful sunset – but I did enjoy sitting on my balcony at dusk mesmerised by the House Martins feeding their nestlings.
Bearing in mind the extreme temperatures we decided for the morning of our last day not to return to Dartmoor but to visit the Seaton Wetlands Reserve which is extremely well managed by East Devon District Council. The approach, oddly, involved driving through a small cemetery. We saw again many of the birds shown above, also a Reed Warbler and a Cattle Egret with its gorgeous yellow head feathers. As Julie pointed out the sound of the breeze blowing gently through the reeds was very soothing and the the songbirds here can be persuaded to feed from your hand – a young Robin fed from mine, almost but not quite landing, a magical moment.
A Red Admiral:
A surprise visitor:
Perhaps best of all were the Sand Martins in their remarkable, specially constructed homes.
A family of Moorhens were close by.
All too soon it was time to say our farewells and head for home. The group had worked really well and I would love to see any and all of them again. I am sure we are all hugely grateful to Mike who worked tirelessly. He nicknamed me ‘Maestro’ which I rather liked but didn’t deserve and, I reminded him, ‘receipt monkey’ since it became my job to file his receipts in the glove compartment of the minibus.
I hope these posts do justice to it all.
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