Spent the day yesterday wandering around St Mary’s, lovely sunny day and lots of swallows and martins migrating through the Islands.
A swallow on the wire in Old Town
House martin at Kitty Down
And in amongst a flock of a 100 plus swallows, house martins and sand martins was this red-rumped swallow – a spring overshoot from southern Europe. Also saw my first swift of the year today.
Looking from Kitty Down back to High Moors and Porthellick
And then this at at Higher Moors ….. the Wildlife Trust have coppiced all the willows next to the hide and as a result there is absolutely no cover when approaching the hide, so no birds at all at the southern end of the pool. Surely this could have been planned and executed differently? It will now take several years before the cover regrows and hide becomes usable again. I really hope next autumn doesn’t see the same treatment up to the next hide……
The beach at Porthloo
Which hosted this 1st winter Iceland Gull – note the bird is all white and has no black tips to the wing. A rare visitor to the UK, but this year has seen quite and influx.
From Porthloo back to the harbour at Hugh Town
The sun setting over the Atlantic (pub and ocean)
A Dartmoor blog 
Looks lovely and glad the swallows have arrived safely. We have red dumped ones here in the south but I think they probably kept going as it’s been much colder and wetter here than normal. Hope all do well in the UK. I count the house martins here in a small town on the Algarve and they seem to have arrived later and fewer.