A Water Rail in the Drain

 I've felt much better today, and with the weather good, hopes were high of a productive walk around the park and cemetery. I felt like I had wasted the weekend to be honest, and wanted to see something interesting, and burn a bit more energy.

Well, it was worth it! 15,000 steps, 10km and two hours!

Sconce Park wasn't very interesting, although the blossom is staggeringly beautiful. There were no peacocks on the blossom, and only a few honeybees working the higher flowers out of camera range. The birdsong was incredibly loud however, with the chaffinches really going for it, and two chiff chaffs singing in the park grounds. 

There's some very loud great tits around at the moment too!

After a circuit of the lake - a quiet time for birds there at the moment but the big carp were sunbathing in the lagoon, knowing that no anglers are allowed to do their angling there. 

The cycle path, bizarrely, was where the real good stuff was to be found. I'm saving some of that news for tomorrow, but down past London Road pond, in the drainage ditch, was where I was stunned to get my first ever sighting of a relative of the coot and moorhen.

I was walking along, and noticed a disturbance in the vegetation next to the water. It took a minute for my eyes to locate the source; then I saw the long red beak and dappled plumage of a water rail skulking about!

These aren't rare birds, and there are sightings at RSPB Langford Lowfields, but they are notoriously shy and secretive and so to see one next to a busy cycle path in the middle of town was just mindblowing. Apparently, one has been seen down there a few years ago, foraging among the discarded red bull cans.

So, all in all, a better day, and it has put me in a better frame of mind.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 22.03.21

Swan Family and Giant Fish

Out to the river today, with plenty to see on my two hour walk under a warm sun.

First up, where the rowing club were just starting to come back to life, there were two big carp basking in the River Devon under the bridge, a peaceful spot they would be shortly forced to vacate by a flotilla of skiffs and canoes.

I also spotted my first male orange tip butterfly in a while, very late in the season to see one of those fellows out and about. It's the end of the season, sadly, for this beautiful species.

Cottage lane nature reserve was full of damselflies, and I saw my first dragonfly of the year, a female broad bodied chaser I think. I also flushed a skylark up from next to one of the ponds.

Down by the river, no hirundines again, but a heron and an egret were having a squabble over fishing rights on the weir, with the heron getting rather testy with its smaller, but prettier, companion. A common tern was hunting along the power station reach, a swallow of the seas normally but you do get them around here as they have nesting grounds nearby.

Sweetest sight was a little further round back towards town. Cobb and Penn were out taking their new family of six cygnets for a peaceful swim along a mirror river.

They are pretty now, but when they grow up a bit, not so much!

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 27.05.20