Dawlish Ducks & Geese

Wot a lot of ducks Dawlish got.

They got white Call Ducks

They got little white Crested Ducks

(alternative daft names for this duck are required)

They got a little White Faced Whistling Duck

Seen here checking his nadgers.

No he wasn’t. He was having a little think.

And here he is jumping for JOY!

Well it was the sort of sunny spring afternoon to be joyful about.

Here is an outrageously attired Mandarin Duck

Trying to have a bit of a Sunday afternoon snooze

And here is The Great Crusted Tuft

Sneakily looking at the Chinese Geese from under that rather swish hat.

And that was happily that. Out of the two dozen or so types of water fowl waddling around Dawlish, 11 were captured by our cameras. And stuck in this film below.

Ducksch and Geesch are fluffy schweeties so they are.

Words & Vid: Ian Nisbet

Reed Warbler on Slapton Ley

There the warbler was, on his reed, chattering away.

I could only hear him. Luckily, Haze could also see him; she zoomed right in with camera.
The little chap gave us 2 minutes of its reedy warbling.

Haze says: ‘I want the film to be posted ‘as is’ onto the blog’.

So here it is. As is.
A precious reed warbler.
As was.

Rapt Attention: Hazel Brown
Rapturous Singing: Mr Reed Warbler
Vid & Words: Ian Nisbet

Clacking The Cloaca

Clacking the Cloaca. Or possibly Cocoaing the Choccy.

Its what them naughty dunnocks have been doing rather a lot of the last couple of weeks.
Mrs D rumps up her bottie. Mr D pecks at, or out,  her choccy cocoa. Making sure he’s extracted any other Mr D’s errant seed.

He dances about behind her doing his Choccy Cha Cha.
Then – bump! – he clacks her cloaca.

Takes a fraction of a second to do the deed.

To make sure she’s got his choccy he has to chase the wench around and clack her again. And again. And again.

Sex mad these durty dunnocks.

Vid & Words: Ian Nisbet

Mrs Blackbird is making a nest

This time last year, almost to the day, Mrs Blackbird was making a nest. The video ‘Mrs Blackbird gets her beak dirty’ confirms it.

The difference between last year and this year is that the nest being made now appears to be actually in the garden. Nestled somewhere deep within the winter jasmine bush behind the new apple tree.

Mrs Blackbird was rushing around in a frenzy. As if carrying eggs that were in urgent need of being laid.

Mr Blackbird mostly sat watching, on lookout, letting her get on with it. He’ll be required to be diligent supplier of worms and caterpillars in a couple of weeks time.

Exciting, and slightly nerve-wracking, times ahead!

Filming: Hazel Brown; Vid & Words: Ian Nisbet

The Lovely Lady & The Buzzy Bee

This is a Lovely Lady.

She called a Hazel.

This is a buzzy Bee

It called a Mason.

The Hazel and The Mason decided to have a little chat.

Words & Vid: Ian Nisbet

A Crow Carry On

This crow has been raiding the back garden for months now.

Beakfuls of bread get lifted off the birdtable and stolen away.

Even has a go at the fatballs. But can’t quite manage to get his feet right.

Filming: Hazel Brown; Vid: Ian Nisbet

Little Wrens

Up at Labrador Bay male wrens were bouncing out of the hedges. Their loud strident calls were just about audible over the horrible din of traffic from the road behind.

I’ve put those clips together with the few clips of the wren we’ve seen infrequently furtling around in the back garden this winter.

So finally, at last, here is a small film of these neat little wrens with their dapper tailed bottoms. Priceless. Precious. Invaluable.

Filming: Hazel Brown (mostly); Vid: Ian Nisbet

Cirl Buntings in the Barley

Off early to Labrador Bay Nature Reserve this Sunday morning.  See if we can get a better look at those curly buntings.

We can. The buntings, a dozen or more, come bunt bunting about right in front of us. We can hardly keep up with them with our cameras.

We’re both completely absorbed, delightfully enthralled, totally thrilled.

Like bandits in the barley are these chubbly cirl buntings.

It feels like that time we were filming red darter dragonflies up at Tessier Gardens. Like we’ve been gifted something magical and marvelous to delight in together.

We filmed wrens hopping about in the hedgerows too, belting out their short sharp songs above the din of the cars on the road behind (a vid of them is in the next post)

A Gold Medal Moment morning.

Vid & Words: Ian Nisbet

Blue Moon

A moon filmed in the blue hour of the night (1st of April) (with a little segment of its morning descent added at the end)

This is a Blue Moon.

The next full moon will be pink.

Filming: Hazel Brown; Vid: Ian Nisbet

Dashing Dart

A slow walk to the Dart river.

Yet more notices about picking up poo
(I presume this isn’t a Phantom Poo Person on the loose, but the usual dog doo dah bollocks)

Somebody had been out picking up, not Poo –  Plastic.

A ceremonial pile of plastic laid out right next to the river Dart.

Plus a couple of glass bottles, some tin cans, a trainer, and other sundry detritus.

Maybe a nice person picking up plastic but without a plastic bag to bin it with.
Or an angry person making a point of drawing attention to how much plastic gets carelessly thrown around perhaps?

It drew my attention. So I took those pictures. To post on the blog.
(Unfortunately I hadn’t got anything on hand to bin this plastic heap of crap either)

Everywhere around on this Easter Bank Holiday Monday was as inert, as dead, as that plastic pile of poo.

But nothing inert about the river Dart today.

Positively bouncing and bubbling along with unstoppable energy, necessary life.