What Goes "Tiiiu!"?

A vibrating whistled flight call, sounded quite thrush-y, could be written Tyyu or Tiioo even, definite drop at the end. Closest description on a look through Collins is Redshank, but this was completely different... [Writing down bird calls is tricksy stuff...]

Answers on a postcard, folks.

But more on that later.

After another week of fun and frolics at work, I decided to Have Some Fun and spent Saturday wandering around t'Moor. Yes, I went to Huntingdon Warren AGAIN. I don't know what it is about that place, really...

This time I finished my shufti from last time [cut short due to minor injury] by taking another way - via Ryder's Hill. Ah, Ryder's Hill, one of the highest spots on the southern moor, a meeting place of paths and a serious viewpoint. Also home, on sunny windy days, to the Horrible Hairy Flies, of which I'll not speak here. I took the old way up, from Holne Lee and following the ridges, past the hidden boundary stone. This is the way we used to go up, many years ago, when the Folks and I started proper Moor walking - it means easy navigation and lots of big views. More recently I've been going up the Mardle [can't think why...??] rather than around it, but this was walking first and birding second.

While being a little warmer than I'd have liked [having my waterproof on {expecting rain}] the overcast and fresh breeze kept it from being too uncomfortable and I made fair time [with the odd detour for birds] up to the top. After turfing the ponies off the summit, I enjoyed the panorama before heading down to Huntingdon Warren via the path I'd seen from the Heap of Sinners [I'm still loving that name]. The width of the path was due, I think, not so much to vast numbers using it as to the periodic pools it went through/around. Hilltop mires are a standard Dartmoor fare, with surprisingly deep pools the interesting bits, and I had a fun time of it [a stick of some sort is really very useful, btw] crossing with a hop, skip and a jump [plus the odd vault] :D

I had lunch at the Heap, enlivened by a flypast Yellow Wagtail, then went to look for a 'Warrener's Shelter' I'd seen on an online walks site. After a fair bit of tussock-wrangling I eventually found it - a little spot where a Warrener or two could keep an eye out for marauding miners from Redlake coming after their bunnies - its a cosy spot but you really need to bring your own stool [Oh what do you know? I had. :)]. After that it was back over to the Farm, where I was met by the happy sight of Wheatears still present and also a whole heap of Mipits - a good 70! There were groups of up to 30 knocking about all day, but so many in such a small [and easily watchable] space was too good an opportunity to miss, so I spent a while getting down with the Mipits. Very good practice, and [once again] showing how variable birds can be, there were big ones and little ones, dark ones and light ones, heavily streaked and almost unstreaked, even one with a rufous tinge to it's throat and upper breast... [[Yes, it was a Mipit]]. All very educational, primarily to the importance of call in pipit id!

Tearing myself away, I crossed the river and went up Pupers then on to Inner Pupers - whose view across east Devon is a joy and a wonder. I finished my coffee and failed to see anything soaring around, by which time it had started to rain a light rain. Sheltered behind a rock, I didn't realise until I stood up that it was the famous sideways rain that makes t'Moor such a welcoming place for those without full waterproofs... Trying not to grin too much, I did not head back up the ridgetop path to Ryder's via Snowdon, but took the contouring path down into the Mardle valley instead. Dartmoor paths are sneaky things, you can very rarely see them when you're not on them. Unless the vegetation is in a very helpful state, if you're above or below a path you'll never know its there, which can be, er, entertaining.

So, sheltered from the weather's full force, I toddled gradually down towards the Mardle, noting the number of berries with interest and also getting my first Snipe of the winter [a flyover, not a flush]. It is at this point that something else flew over calling; in the rain I couldn't get a sight of it, but the call was one I've not heard before. It sounded thrushy rather than wadery or chatty [let alone warblery] but beyond that... One of those things. Crossing the Mardle is always fun - either bog then channel or vice versa - but no Jack Snipe about to be flushed this time*. After that a simple up and over the ridge [at which point the sun duly came out and went "Yar-boo-sucks-to-you!"] and back don the track to my li'l car. A good walk and a refreshing day out.

[[*There was a winter's day, when snow lay on the ground, that I went yomping up Ryder's Hill then down across the Mardle. On Holne Lee I flushed a Jack Snipe that came up from next to my stick {6" more to the right and I'd have impaled the thing!}, then crossing the Mardle I flushed a Snipe which in turn flushed another Jack - the two in flight together was one of those 'bird book' moments. I also found a snow-filled hole the hard way but escaped uninjured, though snowed up to my chest! It was a good day.]]