More mammal tracks left in soft mud. The dead-end lane which runs past the RSPB Bowling Green Marsh Topsham Reserve is popular with dog walkers. After wet weather there’s often dog tracks left in the roadside mud. But there’s sometimes also traces of other, smaller mammals. Here, what I think was a squirrel.
The top picture closes in on the squirrel’s marks. The one below shows them alongside the much larger prints of dog paws.
Cormorants resting and preening on the protective buoys at Trews Weir on the Exe by Exeter Quays. The “decoration” on the buoys is an indication of how regularly the cormorants and gulls visit.
The River Clyst is one of the last tributaries to join the Exe estuary before the Exe itself joins the sea. The lowest reach of the Clyst is tidal, with exposed mud at low tide. These pictures were taken after a spell of wet weather, so the mud extended up the banks and in the neighbouring fields.
A steep bare gully was visible leading down from the field to the river. Along its middle, signs that some largeish creature had used the gully as a slide. At the time I thought it was probably a fox or a badger, but an otter could also have been about the right size. Less distinct, at least from my point of view on a footbridge over the river, I thought I could also see prints left by paws in the soft mud.
There was a similar gully directly across the water on the other bank. It too had what looked to me like hints of tracks, but even harder to make out.
Looking down the last stretch of the River Exe estuary. Where the east (left) bank meets the sea, there’s Exmouth. On the opposite shore, Dawlish Warren. In the middle, at low tide, big areas of exposed mud. On the mud, flocks of waders, geese and ducks, not to mention gulls, scavenging.
Close-up on one spike of a purple heather in flower.
A cormorant swimming on the River Exe by Exeter Quays, heading down-river. A moment later, the bird took off and flew towards the other side of the river to join several of its fellows on one of the protective buoys strung across the weir.
Alexanders plants were really common by the side of roads and lanes in south Devon, and the yellow flowers were beginning to open on some of them in mid-February.
The River Exe directly below the church at Topsham. When the tide is out, as it was here, a wide stretch of very soft and squelchy looking mud is exposed. A pair of teal, wading through the mud, prospecting for things to eat.
Yellow mushrooms growing by the side of a south Devon lane last month. They were probably yellow fieldcaps (Bolbitius titubans).
Confident enough to be singing, this dunnock was near enough I could have stretched out to touch if – if the bush hadn’t been in the way.
Reedmace, a.k.a. bulrushes, by the River Exe just downstream from Exeter Quays.
Black-headed gull, already in breeding plumage in mid-February, boldly standing on the quayside by the River Exe at Topsham.