Friday 30th June and a grey and breezy morning but after a couple of busy days at work I needed to get out for a wildlife fix and with the weather forecast suggesting improving conditions in the east of Devon in the afternoon I decided to jump on the train for a trip to Dawlish Warren. The train journey was just over an hour including a train change at Newton Abbot and on arrival at Dawlish Warren I headed off straight away to the bird hide as it was high tide. However it was a low high tide and with nothing roosting on the island in front of the hide I stayed on the dune ridge where I could scan The Bight and the estuary on one side and the open sea on the other.
Oystercatchers and Canada geese were roosting on Finger Point and 9 mute swans were on the water off Cockwood. Sandwich terns were flying back and forth over the dune ridge making lots of noise and were diving for fish distantly offshore and a smart summer plumaged Mediterranean gull flew past heading east.
The ongoing sea defence work continues with the ship offshore pumping sand from the sea floor onto the beach and attracting a motley crew of gulls attracted to the crabs, starfish, mussels and large flat fish sucked up with the sand - mostly herring gulls with a few black headed, great black backed and a single lesser black backed.
Dawlish Warren Flood Defence Works
Gulls
Sandwich Tern
I headed back to Greenland Lake, seeing a male reed bunting by the dune pond and my first gatekeeper of the year along the way. A singing cirl bunting kept itself hidden away but a whitethroat songflighting was much more showy. There were lots of marsh helleborines in flower around the Lake area along with a few southern marsh orchids almost gone over and setting seed pods and blue eyed grass. Butterflies were noticeable flitting around despite the general lack of sunshine - a male common blue, a red admiral, meadow browns,small coppers, small skippers, a large skipper and a flyby white sp. The small skippers gave some great views looking mostly very pristine. Also seen was a silver y resting in the grass and a snout flitting about in the brambles .
Marsh Helleborine
Marsh Helleborine
Small Skipper
Small Skipper
Small Skipper
Small Skipper
Large Skipper
Silver Y
Snout
Greenfinch
Heading home and I managed to catch a direct train from Dawlish Warren to Plymouth which only took an hour, all in all not a bad few hours out and about.
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