Bright Light Bright Colours

A day with the Folks up on t'Moor yesterday - albeit mostly [trying to be] out of the blazing sunshine.

The Heather is out and the Bracken turning, making for serious scenery;

Birch Tor over Vitifer

Close Up

Down in Vitifer, there were Whinchats aplenty, but they were their usual annoying selves, and avoided the camera with trying regularity. One bird that didn't move fast enough was this;

But.. That's a Redstart!

Sitting in the open in open ground.. 'Huh...' indeed.


We wandered down to Sousson's, to find somewhere shady. This, after a few trials and several tribulations, we succeeded in doing. There we sat, and as you may well have anticipated, the birds came to us. [I keep saying it...] While a nice flock of Linnets moved about in the foreground, and hirundines passed by in the background, up close and personal the birds this time were almost all the same species; Redstarts!!!

Yep, here it comes...

Redstart

Redstart!

It's a preening..

Yeah..

"If I strike a pose, will you put the camera down, please?"

Females were faster

Spotted a Fly

Unfortunately, there were some Woolly Things closer than we realised, and when they opened their pesky gobs, the LBD realised, too... Being a terror-er, once she started up there was no stopping her, so off on a jolly we went. It was far too hot to be doing distance, and while we saw birds, bees, butterflies and dragonflies.. It was hot. And sunny. And hot. Blech.

Annual Centuary

There was quite a lot of this. The insects were far too fast-moving, alas [five flavours of dragonfly, SW Frits, Brimstone.. Nice.]
One thing we didn't see or even hear were Crossbills, despite an abundance of cones - this year most large expanses of conifers have had at least one or two - and Siskin were less evident than usual. Perhaps they didn't appreciate the heat either?

On the way back, we stopped off at a nice little spot by a brook to wash the gunk off of the LBD [she's also a dogopotamus, you see...]. While doggy became soggy [but no longer muddy], I paid attention to a stand of Scots Pine and Willow, which contained a more vocal than usual Spot Fly and a nice showy Willow Warbler.



Mixed day, but the good bits were very good.


Be Seeing You..