Post Involving Orchids

Sunday.

Sunshine and the bank holiday hordes... Went for an amble about the East Devon commons with the folks. Undoubted highlight was a family of Dartfords! Wonderful to see them, especially as they were close and gave prolonged views - moving past along a line of gorse, adults staying up high to keep an eye on us. Wow. :D Less spectacular, but still special were some very confiding Linnets [ok, confiding for Linnets] with a very snazzy male treating us to some singing.

As well as a good selection of birds, my first Emperor Dragonfly of the year, some pretty orchids [white or pink with little purple spots], and almost an Adder [a couple with mastiffs coming the other way saw it, but it'd scarpered by the time we got there :( ]. Raptors were limited to a Hobby and assorted Buzzards [including one doing a creditable Kestrel hover] - there was one bigger thing soaring near the coast with two Buzzards, but too far off even through the Li'l Scope... We were also stalked by one of those yellow butterflies - just one, almost everywhere we went!

Today.

More family fun - this time also with icklest sister and a day on the north east side of t'Moor. Definitely a Cuckoo day - a Lifer for the Sister [not that she is even slightly a birder, mind] and a really good one as we came across a grey morph female sat in a little Hawthorn, under siege from two pairs of angry Mipits! We were only about 50 feet away [albeit across the Teign] when we noticed her, and got great views - especially when she finally made a break for it. :D One of four Cuckoos for the day, with another Hobby on the way there, and a surprise juvenile Mistle Thrush [took me a while to work out what the 'big funny-looking thrush-y thing' was - it kept hiding behind rushes] the bird highlights.

No phantom kites today, but amusing anecdote is of what is evidently a very experienced Song Thrush - as well as a whole range of bird song mimicry and a brief attack of mobile phone, it also has 'begging baby Buzzard'.... Deary me.

And yes, I'm still grinning about those Puffins! :D