After the sadness and disappointment of this weeks Dipper dramas, I have carried on with my obsession……. birds and wildlife.  When one door closes another invariably opens and thats just the way it has panned out.  Firstly the Kingfishers on the rIver Exe here, close to home have for certain got chicks in the nest.  You should know that Kingfishers are a Schedule 1 bird and are subject to special protection. To photograph a Kingfisher nest requires a special license which I have applied for from Natural England, the body responsible for policing the granting of license.  You may be interested to know that license are issued on a quota basis of 1% of the estimated breeding population of the species.  Any license granted is specific to a particular nest and not the bird in general, therefore, because I am aware of two Kingfisher nests, I have applied for two licenses. I have been informed by Natural England that the quota has not been filled for 2012.  There are also numerous conditions that the applicant is required to  provide proof of. These include photographs of 6 none schedule 1 birds involved in nesting activity, in itself quite a hard requirement to fullfill and references from responsible people who are preferably involved in wildlife management or something similar.  Glad to say that I have ticked all of the boxes and hopefully my license applications will be successful but it is by no means a formality, but my fingers are crossed.

This morning I went out back towards the Dipper site to see if there was anything to take not of. . There was no sign whatsoever of adult Dippers and the nest looked a sorry mess. It appears to have been completely submerged yet again since my last visit only two days ago. A drive further afield and to a lovelly area nearer to the "true" Dartmoor was very rewarding.  A "for certain"  Tree Pipit was singing beautifully from the top of a Hawthorn. I took photos just for the record and  to confirm the identity when I got home even though I ws pretty certain. I  was surprised that the photo was as successful as it turned out.  Just notice that the beak is much, much heavier than a that of a Meadow Pipt and this was the first thing that struck me.