Having noticed the kite tweeted on the way home from Devon at reference 1, it is now time to record the more modest tweets of our time actually there.
On the moor
One of the draws is the cuckoos of Holne Moor, which have not let us down in May yet. So we stay in Forestoke, the southernmost of the various stokes on offer to the west of Home Woods, above the Dart, to the right in the snap above. The drill being to walk out of our converted shed at around 16:00, past the quarry and head west along the track on the left until Venford Reservoir comes into view to the north. There and back takes about an hour, involving, on the first occasion at least, a certain amount of puffing and pausing on the way up.
On the Monday morning, the gorse on the moor had been spectacular to look at, but did not smell of much. But by 16:00, out of the wind, a strong smell of coconut.
On all three days, I heard cuckoos. Seemingly, either from the trees at the head of the reservoir or from the trees above the quarry.
Most days, I put skylarks up. Sometimes, I managed to pick one out in the sky above. A picking out which is harder than one might think, given the amount of noise that they put out.
Much twittering in the bushes, but no tweets. Then on the last day, some whinchats, perching conveniently on the top of gorse bushes. With the sun setting in the west and a gibbous moon, near full, in the east. All very spectacular.
I had forgotten that the first time I had seen a whinchat was at the very same place, just about five years previously. See reference 3. There is also the idea in my mind that the cuckoo likes to use whinchat nests for its eggs, but I have not been able to confirm that this morning.
Elsewhere
A couple of chaffinches in the bushes around Venford Reservoir.
At least one brood of ducklings on the reservoir. And some more on the branch of the Dart at Hexworthy. Shooting the rapids if you please.
A buzzard over Hembury Woods.
The odd swallow perched on the line above our shed at Forestoke. A possible swift.
No owls at Forestoke, beyond one very feeble hoot. Not confirmed at all.
A goldfinch sitting on a field gate somewhere in Marsh Vale, above Lyme Regis.
No more brown birds under the east cliff at Lyme Regis. For which see reference 4.
Some thrush sized birds running around Portland Bill, outside the café there. Very dark on top, bright yellow breasted. Bing's first effort was the grey wagtail but I see them quite a bit and I don't think that was it. Next up was the northern wheatear but that doesn't look too clever now. Another candidate was the yellow breasted chat. But that fails because it is a New World bird. So, for the moment, failure. Maybe another visit to Portland Bill is indicated.
Conclusions
A lot more twittering than tweets. But not such a bad haul in the end.
PS 1: the Ordnance Survey might produce very fine maps and the online version works well enough when you get there. But getting there seems to be a lot more messy than it need be, usually involving, in my case, logging in twice. Nothing like as slick as the big commercial sites. Or even the big government sites, like the ones from the tax people and the health people.
PS 2: the Water Board never bothered to reply to my email asking how they used to get the water over the hills from Venford Reservoir, all the way to Paignton, which was why the reservoir was built in the first place.
References
Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/05/red-tweet.html.
Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whinchat.
Reference 3: http://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/05/tweets.html.
Reference 4: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/02/attempted-tweet.html.
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