The first Birder’s outing back after the summer break was to Dawlish Warren. We didn’t bother with the buckets and spades but we did go on the beach and watched a few sandwich terns plunge with a vertical dive time and time again into the briny to fish for sand eels. And just before we left the beach a couple of sanderlings were spotted doing their clockwork running before flying off. The tide was now nearly low tide so no more food being uncovered for them.

The terns were the highlight of our outing as there weren’t the birds about as there were the previous day when it was sunny. There were a few stonechats spotted, starlings, greenfinches, and was that a female pheasant that we caught a sight of just taking off or was it the rear of a raptor that was spotted a few moments later?

I can’t go without mentioning the special flora which Dawlish has growing there; two which were spotted, the first was something I’d looked for several times when visiting but without success until this time, which was a diminutive orchid called Autumn ladies tresses Spiranthes spiralis. The other was also quite tiny - Spiny Restharrow, Ononis spinosa. There are other specialist plants there but to see them flowering requires an earlier visit in the year.

Janet