4 April 2009

Andrew Cunningham’s hopes of catching up with four Garganey at Bowling Green Marsh on 14 March didn’t materialise – but he did witness another, rather gruesome spectacle.

5 March 2009

Thanks to Roy Churchill who sent in these superb photos of a female Great Spotted Woodpecker at Arlington. A walk through any patch of broadleaf woodland at this time of year will almost certainly yield drumming 'Great Spots' as the males establish and defend breeding territories.

26 February 2009

Following on from the Goshawk/Sparrowhawk identification article ‘That tricky accipter’ by Mark Darlaston in the April 2008 issue of Devon Birds journal, Mark has taken a couple more great photographs that might be useful for identification purposes. Here, two separate images have been merged to provide a side-by-side comparison of the two species.

26 February 2009

This superb shot of a male Sparrowhawk with its Great Tit kill was taken by Robin Khan at Chudleigh Knighton on 19 January.

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Male Sparrowhawk which has just caught a Great Tit.

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"This bird has moved into a clearing beside a walkway at the local Stover country park. Unlike most buzzards this one does not seem to be phased by the 200 people on the walkway, during the 3 hours I was watching it at a distance of no more than 20m, including shouting kids barking dogs etc. Taking no notice of the squirrels or pigeons just below a feeder it seems to be on the lookout for frogs which are becoming more plentiful". - John Lee

24 February 2009

Dave Stone managed to capture these shots of a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker at Steps Bridge on 15 February.

16 February 2009

Seven years ago Mike Langman started to feed a winter flock of Cirl Buntings at Broadsands car park in Torbay. The results were fantastic, with the flock building to 11 birds in 2002 and 31 in 2004. This winter the numbers have peaked at 24.

House sparrows in Devon

Jon Avon, November 2007 

Devon’s House Sparrows continue to thrive in most places. They can be found in coastal towns, high moorland farmsteads, rural villages and city centres, yet House Sparrows are mostly overlooked and under-recorded. However, given the notable decline of their population in the UK, Devon’s House Sparrows are coming under closer scrutiny.