I witnessed some amazing behaviour yesterday at the Sand Martin colony on the River Exe locally. It was, and still is by the way, glorious cloud free, blue sky weather. I sat and watched the Martins coming and going, one pair particularly had a nest hole quite close and they didn't appear to be disturbed at all by my close presence. Suddenly, a really big commotion started and I watched this pair tussling and literally rolling in the dirt. This went on for at least a minute. One bird seemed to have the upper hand and I wondered what had caused this breakout of mayhem and violence. After a short while, an out of control dog splashed through the water towards the birds who, up until then had been oblivious of everything else going on around them. They felw up and over the water, momentarily  still locked together. It was an interesting few minutes.

I had been up at 5.30 and in my number 1 hide on the brook by 6. A two hour wait for the Kingfisher male didn't  come to anything and he was absent from the hide area. It was an interesting session though. The first Moorhen seen in the brook scurried by carrying a worm. I have wondered why why we haven't had Moorhen before, so it was no surprise. Also, an interesting sighting was a lesser Black Backed Gull that swooped down to pick something off the surface. Again another new species for the brook. To top it all, the male little Egret also came so close, I couldn't get a shot of him.