Belstone

On Saturday I had a great day out with the Mid Devon Birds group, exploring the area around Belstone on the Northern edge of Dartmoor. We had glorious sunshine & fantastic scenery all day, and the birds were pretty good too.

We started off by walking down into the lovely wooded River Taw valley. There were quite a few Swallows & House Martins collecting mud from the edges of a puddle as we entered the valley & we could hear Blackcaps, Chiffchaffs, Willow Warblers & Cuckoos. A different song caught our attention as we descended towards the river, which we soon discovered belonged to an obliging Garden Warbler.

It was quite a steep climb down

The Garden Warbler gave us great views, I managed this shot with my 'point & shoot' Lumix.

Unfortunately no Dipper. Chris, the walk leader, says he very rarely sees them here

Diversification....John gave us a geocashing lesson

Stopping to admire the view we saw 2 cuckoos & heard a 3rd, and saw 4 Ravens

Looking back towards the village...

...and out to the North over the fields of bluebells 

We descended back into the valley, passing a singing Redstart on the way, and walked back to the car park in Belstone for lunch. Then we headed out through the village onto the moor towards Belstone Tor.

Communications centre...the old Telegraph Office

On the moor...we soon saw Meadow Pipits & Skylarks

I really should have put the tripod legs up!

This is what we were looking at. I really must practise digiscoping.

A Stonechat with limited orange on the breast & large white collar....a bit like a Siberian

As we started heading back towards the village, a female Wheatear gave us some nice views and a couple of Stock Doves flew over, putting the day list on 40, although I think we did add a couple more after that. The day finished in style....Chris's wife is still waiting for the lease to get sorted out on a tea shop in the village, so she catered for us at their house instead!

An afternoon cream tea on the lawn, how civilised!