David

The bird on the ground is another example of birdwatching in comfort. It landed right in front of me while I was sitting at one of the picnic tables of the Bridge at Topsham and drinking a beer. The other was a few minutes walk distant, in one of the bushes in the lane by the RSPB Bowling Green Marsh reserve.

Heathers flowering. Plants with purple and white flowers were directly next to one another on a roadside bank.

Every day around high tide, a merganser drake would swim up and down the same short stretch of the River Exe directly in front of the Quay at Topsham, frequently diving for fish.

It was evidently a productive spot. On some days he was fishing alongside one or two cormorants.

Common whitlowgrass (Draba verna) forming a small patch of vegetable carpet as it flowers. Presumably it used to be thought, for some reason, that it had a use in curing the finger infection.

A pair of jackdaws on a TV aerial. This pair were keeping an eye on gardens overlooking the River Exe at Topsham, while grooming their feathers.

Gorse flowering, with its sharp but sturdy spines ready to repel any mere mammal which tries to get too close. Could be on almost any patch of rough ground at the moment, but this bush was on the stabilised sand dunes at the back of the promenade road, Exmouth.