16 members attended Steps Bridge today for a most enjoyable field meeting. Ably led by Tim Channon who has great knowledge of this area, his local patch, so many thanks to him! It was very encouraging to have 2 friendly and knowledgeable prospective new members in attendance, hopefully they will join us again. It was good to hear people happily sharing their knowledge with each other and discussing various points of the sightings.
The weather was typical for early spring, mixed sunshine and showers allowing us 32 different species seen and heard. Most notable, were at least 2 lesser spotted woodpeckers, 3 pairs of dipper – 2 seen coming from their nest about 6ft up a tree alongside the river, several song thrush, nuthatch, redwing, siskin, jay, tree creepers, pair of bullfinch, pair of goosander, kingfisher, heron, marsh tit, gs woodpecker, sparrowhawk, goshawk and to end the day a tawny owl was heard nearby. All the other usual suspects, eg goldcrest, grey wagtail, buzzard etc were present so a good birding day was had by all.
Annabelle Strickland, Mid Devon Co-ordinator
