Category: David

Reed warblers are easier to hear than to see. These were young birds showing themselves as they hunted for insects in the vegetation beside a quiet stretch of the Exeter Canal.

Less tall than the common evening primrose, the fragrant evening primrose also has a stronger preference to sandy soils. So it was right at home on the Maer Local Nature Reserve, Exmouth, a patch of dunes now separated from the beach by the road running along the sea front.

Scarce chaser male resting on a broken reed at the edge of the Exeter Canal. This species of dragonfly is indeed scarce, and present only in southern counties. At first glance it looks very like the much more common broad-bodied chaser. I would have thought it was one of those if I had not been tipped off.

The next batch of posts are of pictures taken on a short holiday in Devon and Cornwall. This swan few a couple of hundred yards along the River Clyst, a tributary which meets the Exe in its estuary,

Close-up of a tiny ladybird, black with orange spots, on a grass flower.

Coot nest on a patch of flattened reeds in the middle of a part of the River Avon covered in waterlily leaves, with the nest’s owner near the edge of the nest.