Swan sits on her eggs

I’m walking through Kings Garden by Torre Abbey. A swan was sat on her eggs. What a peaceful picture. Or so you would think.

Except for the ghetto blaster dinning disco in the background.

Except for the fighting dog that rushed in at the swan. Mrs Swan reared up hissing and the hound backed off. The dirty owner of this dog, a baseball-capped junkie chav, didn’t give a monkeys. It, and its slobbery beast, slithered off and away.

Mrs Swan reasserted herself on the nest, giving her eggs inside a little tap and turn over (just to make sure they were all right)

Songbirds were brightly twittering away around the swans nest. Mrs Swan gathered a bit more twig and grass around her and her eggs. Then settled down to peacefully sleep.

Well, I hope she could peacefully sleep with all this mindless din and disturbance kicking off around her.
I despair of us human beings sometimes.

Words & Vid: Ian Nisbet

At The Stumpy Oak Cross

This is Hawson Cross: a wayside marker for the old monastic route the ‘Monks Way’. Its stood side by side with that ‘Stumpy Oak’; one of only two on Dartmoor that are officially recognised as being, “historic oak trees”.

The tree is still alive but with a hollowed out trunk.

Its easy to imagine the cross and the oak becoming as one – given enough entropy to mystically merge them together.

I happened upon this stumpy oak and cross ‘memorial’ just outside Scorriton.
It was being a mildly munificent Spring afternoon.
I could hear all the song birds twittering about. But I couldn’t get at them with the camera. Birds don’t want to be seen. Leave them be.

See the sheep instead. Like this pair of scruffs.

Whoever’s sheared them didn’t do a very good job (probably shorn by that blind old bat in the Specsavers ad)

Walking on a bit further and what do I see? Yet more scruffiness.

Poor chap couldn’t see what he was doing. Kept bumping into trees.

In need of some serious barbering these shaggy haired toy ponies.

Even this tiny titch, spied through a little gap in the hedge.

Could have done with a good shampoo and set.

Mandarins Meanderins

A mandarin duck floating about on the river Dart. A labrador jumped in and the mandarin escaped up into a tree out the way.

Half an hour later the mandarin plopped back into the river to be joined by a second male. The pair of them flipped about together upstream and downstream in the same bit of river.

Then some animated cleaning was undertaken. These mandarins have to keep their beautiful suits impeccably preened in order to maintain themselves at their immaculate best.

I like seeing these mandarin ducks on the Dart river flipping in and out of Hembury Woods. They seem more ‘au naturale’ than over in Stover Park.

Words & Vid: Ian Nisbet

Woolly Mommeths

A walk to Hembury Woods yesterday morning didn’t fetch up any feathers to film. So in the absence of good bird I resorted to default option B: photoing sheep.

A ton of wool on offer. You could make a couple of cardigans out of that ewes back and still have enough left over for a scarf and 6 pairs of socks.

The springtime lambs were bouncy with tea cosy cuddliness too.

This lamb clocked me and gave me what looks like a little sheepish smile.

Another lamb gave me a bit more of a sniffy look.

In the meantime the wollly mommeths (their munching mothers) chomped relentlessly on.

Chomp chomp chomp. Hardly picking their heads up to look around let alone be bothered by somebody as silly as me.

If they keep chomping at the rate they’re going these curly wooleths will be looking like this by Easter.

(underneath all that tonnage of wool is an Australian chap called Chris. Got himself into the news a few years ago for breaking the world record as the biggest, woolliest, heaviest, sheep ever sheared. Read about it here)

Words & Pics: Ian Nisbet

Kestrel hovering on high

Up on Babbacombe cliffs last Saturday was this kestrel.
Hovering high above.

Simply waiting and watching from up there, in its big bit of sky.

Hardly having to bat an eyelid (or a wing) Resting on the wind, but intensely alert.
Gimlet-eyed and focused for any little furries down below.

A free-wheeling wide-awake predator.

Vid & Words: Ian Nisbet

Mandarins on the Mardle

A pair of Mandarin ducks have moved into Buckfastleigh over the last couple of months.

I’ve seen this pair several times at the bottom of town drifting along the little river Mardle.

The female appears to be disabled. She doesn’t seem to be able to hold her head properly upright. At the back of her neck is a ruffled ridge of raised feathers.
I’m wondering whether the male (her male) damaged her neck in some way during mating.

Male ducks (of most types) have a tendency to be violently aggressive towards females when coupling.

The male (her male) is very proprietorial. He’s never more than a few (webbed) feet away from her. He can’t bear to let her out of his sight.

Perhaps he’s her ‘carer’.
But more probably, he’s her warder cum abuser cum jailer cum jealously possessive patriarchal ‘boss’.

Words & Vid: Ian Nisbet

Grey Heron at Queen Marshes

This grey heron appears to be resident at Queen Marsh, Dartington.

I’ve seen it there quite frequently all winter. Along with a Little Egret.

Lugubrious is how you would describe grey herons.

Prone to patiently waiting, waiting, waiting; before pronging themselves decisively forward – headfirst onto a flickery fish.

Words & Vid: Ian Nisbet

A Three Cormorant Triangle

Walking away from Totnes along the Dart river I saw this.

Three cormorants in repose on a fallen branch.

Equidistant from one another as if forming the 3 points of a triangle.

The cormorant sat on the waviest bit of branch was balding.

Possibly molting. Or perhaps a cormorant crone, the old witch of the threesome.

The one sat at the apex of the triangle barely moved.

Possibly overstuffed with fish if that engorged gullet is anything to go by.

Cormorants don’t seem to be confined to the coast. I’ve seen them at Stover Park, on the river Lemon in Newton Abbot, and quite frequently shooting up and down the river Dart.

Words & Photos: Ian Nisbet

There was this tortoise crossing the road ….

Walking down Parkfield Rd towards Torquay coach station yesterday I nearly stepped on this.

It was actually much nearer the kerb than pictured there (I’d moved it back a bit)

It had been about to cross the road.
Not a good idea.

I re-picked it up to ascertain if it was still alive.
It was.

As you can see very much still alive.

Where had it come from? Had it just woken up from its long winter hibernation? Was it an escapee? And was it really going to cross that road?

No it wasn’t. Because I wasn’t going to let it. The sweet little fella would have been crunched under the wheels of a car and totally splattered.
I carried it off to a small copse at the back of the street. Placed it down carefully in some scrubby vegetation. Blew it a kiss. Quietly waved it goodbye.

Hopefully its happily still up there munching through the greenery. Content to have been rescued from the concrete jungle below.

A pair of great tits ‘teachering’

A walk down the river Lemon yesterday to see, and hear, 2 great tits in rapid fire rivalry with one another. Lots of agitated wing flashing and persistent calling back and forth going on.

You hear great tits just about everywhere you go, but this is the first time I’ve actually seen them close up doing their ‘teacher teacher teachering’.

After 2 weeks of total inertia (following major eye surgery) it was good to be back doing a spot of ‘birding’again.

Words & Vid: Ian Nisbet