I went out to Dartmoor again this morning. I wanted to see if I could catch sight of the young Stonechats that had fledged the nest 11 days ago. At first, as I walked towards the area where the nest had been it was obvious that the adults were more mobile than they had been when the youngsters first fledged the nest. I continued on to the territory and sat down quietly to watch and hopefully photograph. It took a while but I became aware of at least one young bird calling very quietly near to the adult male who was high in a hawthorn. The call was a wren-like low buzz and after a few more minutes I caught sight of one of the youngsters being fed very quickly by the adult male. The male flew away strongly folllowed closely by the youngster. The Willow Warbler (above) was very active in the are and at one point perched very close to me. Later on, I heard the youngsters again, quite a way down the hillside and both the male and female were close by. The male had completely shed his tail when I photographed him last week but already he has grown the start of a new one as you can see below.
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Yet another Willow Warbler, seemingly quite numerous at the moment in this area.
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