Proper Gander

I took an afternoon walk setting out from home and looping around the fields down to Lympstone and along the river towards Mudbank. Three Kestrel were still present in the fields around Exe View Road. There was little out of the usual this week in the fields and hedgerows. Two Chiffchaff were calling from Oaks. A Jay was moving around the wood at the top of Exe View Road. But it was very quiet. A Roe Deer was feeding in a field. The tide was coming in at Lymsptone Beach. I watched a group of 6  Turnstone  feeding on small crabs and wondered what other waders were on the estuary today... As I was heading out of Lympstone, I picked up a message from Matt Knott, who had found that a Long-Billed Dowitcher , seen previously at Dawlish Warren, was now in a wader flock on Mudbank. I sped up my walking and arrived to find Matt and a group of other local birders watching the bird. It spent the majority of the time I was there asleep with brief moments of putting it's head up or relocatin

I walked out from home today on my usual route: from home towards Woodbury down Exe View Road, past St. Peter's School playing fields, down to Lympstone along the estuary before heading back towards home. It was lightly raining, and several Chiffchaff, five in total for the afternoon, were calling in the oak trees along Exe View Road. One very green/yellow Willow Warbler was also feeding in an Oak, but it proved difficult to photograph. There were 200+ House Martins and Swallows above the field just past Wotton Brook. This area always looks like a really good one, but I've yet to see anything unusual. Three  Kestrel , one adult and two young birds, were in the area. As it was raining, they were perched up obscured by leaves, and I only saw them in flights between trees as they were hassled  by Jackdaws . A Whitethroat was in the hedge by St . Peter's School playing fields, and I could hear a  Skylark  calling in the field behind it  (there are usually several here). On