The Run Around

Well, perhaps the walk around is more appropriate, but you can't help some things.

After a merry week of work, I lost Saturday to being utterly knackered and falling asleep.. Oh dear, it really will not do.


So, I was determined to get something useful [that's not Real Life useful, mind] done on Sunday. Gazing at the weather and so on, I decided to GoEast! and play with things that liked sunshine.


I started here;

Here Be Dragons

I miss the crocodile, I really do. It made the place.

Yes, Bystock. Home of many wild things, and quite a few people on a sunny weekend, but what can you do?

I went on a Bug hunt, and what did I catch?

Too...many...puns...

Oh, this and that..

Keeled Skimmer

Golden-ringed Dragonfly

Beautiful Demoiselle

Immature [note eyes] Small Red Damselfly

Adult Small Red Damselfly

Yeah, at least 5 Small Reds, showing quite well as long as your autofocus behaves...

Azure Damselfly

Large Red Damselfly

[Red on thorax, black on abdomen, unlike Small]

Blue-tailed Damselfly

Large Skipper

Yeah, it was nice. Proper Summer bladdy hot, rather than offensively over hot, as was last month.


I then moved on to Site 2 to look for things more feathery. Yup, to that Advertised Site for a Schedule 1 Species - am I allowed to say its name?

Oh boy did those little slatey gits give me the run around [yup, there's the title]. Not a sign, not a call... Sometimes you can see them before you've even crossed the road, but sometimes they're not in the mood. There should be juveniles and adults working on v. 2.0, especially on a nice sunny day with light winds, right? Ha. Ha. Ha.

Juvenile Stonechat

[Plenty of these!]

Persistence is number two on the birding list for a reason, so I didn't give up and covered every site, known and potential, at least twice.. This meant risking Horsefly Country [ok, the whole of Aylesbeare is HC, really]; anywhere near a tree, a wet bit, or both is likely to get a tasty visitor [that's you] an appreciative audience of Biting Cleggs...  Some go for your front, some for the backs of your legs, some for your face. Ah, joy.

I was prepared, with plenty of SSS and a careful eye on my shadow [they're silent; you see them or feel the bite!] I avoided getting tagged, but at the cost of a lovely Silver-studded Blue, which was posing nicely, but staying still enough to photo while being attacked was not going to happen.. Drat.

There were loads of Stonechats and Linnets and Yellowhammers and Chiffchaffs with Swallows and the odd House Martin overhead. Many of the juvie Stonechats were very dark, just to rub it in.


I did see some things willing to pose;

Golden-ringed Dragonfly

I cannot get enough of these wonderful things, here's Mrs to go with Mr above.

Large Skipper

Time meandered on, and the sun started to wester. I eventually sat myself back down at my pet spot, to ponder my woes and start to compose this in my head.. I was still scanning the gorse tops and indeed the skies [I'd taken the li'l scope along, in case of Soaring Things - a view over the Otter valley is always worth keeping an eye on]. Nothing. Not a sniff.
A couple of local birders told me they'd seen nowt for a while, either; 'A juv a couple of days ago, but no adults for a week'.  

Time to take it like a birder, I wandered back along the road.. Then stopped dead by a snatch of song overlaid by a noisy Linnet... 'Was that..?' I stopped and turned back, listening hard. The Linnet again, now without a scratchy bit over the top.. No scratchy bit alone, though. Then a bird on the right - small and dark, it's another juv Stonechat- no, that's too much tail! Then the call; classic chair! I froze, camera out slowly as I watched the gorse it had gone into.. then up it popped! Juvie Dartford! Yes! Get on it, lovely in the low sun.. I swear it was flushed by the sodding zoom motor.

Knickers and indeed bum.


Hey, they're still there, right? Think positive.



Here's a bird that did pose, on my balcony in the rain;

Mr Blackbird

Hunting worms, noshing Berberus berries and even singing! :D



Be Seeing You..