I have purchased a new camera body, a Pentax K20D, it has more mega-pixels a better sensor and works and focuses faster. Already my photos are clearer, crisper and the camera is easier to use therefore the percentage of good shots is higher. In actual fact I am staggered with the results. I had eight hours out on Dartmoor yesterday, ostensibly to use the new camera and to get to grips with it but the birds were absolutely amazing yesterday! I took some glorious photos of Meadow Pipits, they are photogenic as I have said previously and pose on the tops of heather clumps as they sing and call. But enough of that and on to the important bits of news. Firstly there was very little sign of the Dartford Warblers
but I met a couple who told me they had seen Dartford Warblers feeding newly fledged youngsters so that explains why they were around a specific area the other day and also why they were not in that area today. I am pretty sure that there were at least 2 pairs and I will see them again given a tiny bit of luck.
Having sat for an hour with the camera set up, and with no sign I walked down the valley. I took up position, quietly out of sight on a hillock, eye level to a hawthorn tree, a Willow Warbler was singing in the area and a Wren and I was hoping that they would come to the top of the tree and sing. This is exactly what happened and with the new camera proving it’s worth I took some nice artistic shots of both the Wren and the Willow Warbler.
I met a nice older man who not only wanted to chat but encouraged me to accompany him to go and look for the Red Backed Shrikes that have been reported. I am deliberatley making no more reference to these birds for their security and safety but all will be revealed in due course! For the record here is a shot of Britain’s rarest breeding bird!

Reed Buntings were seen and photographed and I took shots of a Coal Tit who had a nest in a hole in the remains of an old cottage made from local stone.