Looks like my visit to the UK is almost up, the prime reason was to return for my brother’s fiftieth and to catch up with my father (in Devon) and the rest of our family, though I was hoping to get some reasonable birding time in also. Unfortunately Spring hasn’t yet arrived in GB, and neither have the migrants but things are ‘warming-up’ and there is a faint possibility I might get out and catch a few before I depart for Thailand next week, here’s hoping…..
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One of the first things that I did on arrival in Devon was to sign-up temporarily for the Rare Bird Alert in the hope that I would find out if any exciting species were present or had arrived, sadly the only species that I felt like making a special trip for was an over-wintering Lesser Yellowlegs at Ernesettle Creek near Plymouth. It took a couple of trips before I managed to score but I did get reasonably close views on a very cold, damp day but at the time of writing migrants were still only arriving in trickles…
Ring Ouzel
One migrant that I was lucky to encounter was an adult male Ring Ouzel which appeared to land almost at my feet at Whiteworks near Princetown, this was one species that I’ve longed for in the past and I was fortunate to get one or two reasonable images of.
The most abundant large raptor on Dartmoor is the Common Buzzard and I was fortunate to encounter several ‘displaying’, I also had a male Hen Harrier early one morning at Dartsmeet.
I’ve also been ‘loitering-around’ a bird-feeder at Badger’s Holt, and have had 5 species of tits, Nuthatch, Yellowhammer, 3 species of thrush, Siskins, Robins and wagtails. On the weekend I popped into birding-friends Gary and Anna Easton backyard and photographed several Brambling (The birds were actually in their neighbours Mike and Jan’s, garden!)
Before leaving the UK for Thailand I spent several days w, ith relatives at West Wycombe in Buckinghamshire. The most impressive sight for me was seeing many Red Kites soaring in the area…..possibly one of the most successful re-introduction projects in the history of the UK, when I was younger they were an almost ‘mythological’ species, found only in Wales or mainland Europe.
