A rare sighting!

I took the dogs for a walk over Dunkery and along Dickies Path last weekend and spotted some interesting activity in the bracken. I saw what I thought was a bird of prey flying down to the bracken and some little birds then flew up and started flying all around it. At first I thought they were trying to scare it off but the bigger bird just sat there. A couple of people came along with binocs and asked what I was looking at – they had a look and were very excited to see it was a baby cuckoo being fed by meadow pipits – apparently this is a very rare sight. They congratulated me on the sighting and said that I obviously knew the area well and what to look for. I modestly shrugged and thought ‘who needs Derek to show visitors the sights of Exmoor’ The situation was spoilt somewhat when they then asked me whether I had spotted many Fritillary as the area was a good place to see them. I replied that I wasn’t that good on my birds but I didn’t think so which is when they informed me that Fritillary were in fact butterflies! Move over Beccy and let Ranger Brown take over!!!!

A couple of days later Derek took the camera and went over to where I told him I had seen them and managed to take loads of photos. There was also an older cuckoo flying around all the time which Derek thinks must have been from an earlier brood as it is far too late for adults to be here still. (Click on the photos for an enlargement).