Willow Warbler

As I approach 60 years old (in a few weeks), I thank my lucky stars for good health, but most of all for the opportunity, or should I say, freedom, to come and go as I please. So when the afternoon started to look as though it was going to become clear and perhaps sunny, I jumped in the old car and headed back up to Dartmoor for what turned out to be a real feast. 

It started quite early in to the outing when I was fortunate to find a Meadow Pipit nest complete with 5 lovely eggs. Whenever I find a nest of any kind  it fills me with an immense feeling of warmth and satisfaction. Birds are beautiful, but their nests are like treasure chests full of little jewels. I quickly checked the nest, praying for a cuckoo egg amongst the clutch, but no luck as far as that was concerned. However, I know where the nest is now, I marked it from a track with  a few upside down sticks placed just behind. I will be able to find the nest again but any passer by will not realise the significance of the sticks. It certainly is going to be really enjoyable to watch, photograph and record the development of this little family. I can't wait for my next visit. I plan to get a hide erected to record all aspects of behaviour, hopefully without disturbance. This will also serve as really good practise  for more sensitive birds. The nest it's self was a well concealed circle of grasses tucked away under a tussock and on the ground. The 5  eggs, the normal clutch size, were small and a dark speckled brown on a lighter brown background.

 Further down in to the valley there is a wet area with sedges and sphagnum moss. This is obviously a good habitat for Reed Buntings and I have seen them here in the summer on every visit. I have developed a good strategy recently, for getting photographs and it seems to be working really well. This Reed Bunting was coming and going from a nest and I managed some good shots, yet again, of both the male and the female.

So it was a good trip for birds and well worth the considerable effort involved, there is quite a degree of strenuous walking and I guess it is doing me good, but it can hurt!

The highlight of the adventure wasn't a bird though, not even one of the 4 cuckoos heard a calling, but a gorgeous, chestnut coloured Roe deer that I disturbed whilst trying to get pictures of a Wren family. The deer was tucked behind a ridge, safe she thought, but suddenly she was aware of me and half bolted, but stopped to look back. I froze and in my cam gear, she couldn't see me. I stood watching her wondering how to reach my camera,  a few feet away, on the grass behind me. I tried to reach for it very slowly but the small amount of movement was all it took for her to pick me out and off she sped!