So, it’s now August on Dartmoor.  It’s interesting to see how the landscape has changed as the bracken has grown, and a different set of flora is in bloom.  The bird life has also changed a little since starting here in June.  The dawn chorus is now being sung by willow warblers and chiff chaffs that are probably passing through (the locals stopped singing in late June), as well as whitethroats and the ubiquitous wrens.  The blackcaps now spend their days chipping out their contacts calls, rather than singing, and we no longer hear cuckoos, garden warblers, song thrushes or even that many blackbirds, although there are still young thrushes (including mistle) about.

I am lucky enough to see numerous young and adult raptors regularly, having worked out where I can see families of sparrow hawks, kestrels, hobbys and buzzards, including a near white fronted, palest young buzzard that I’ve ever seen.  We also see a (young?) peregrine fly near the watch site a few times during the month, and on one fantastic occasion we saw this bird spend considerable time testing its moves on a buzzard and then some pidgeons.  In fact the only raptor that didn’t seem to get involved in aerial duals with the buzzards were the sparrow hawks, which were content to scythe through the scrub/trees, at high speed.  On my final watch myself and Helene were witness to one chasing a very panicked green woodpecker into some trees.  Greeny avoided capture by inches with a couple of incredible last minute changes in direction.

Massive thanks goes to Nigel, Mary and Colin for bringing along cakes & crisps for myself and Damian (my co-worker for the last month or so) and to all the day volunteers/birders for spending time watching out for the birds and keeping us from turning into some kind of eccentric recluses during the course of the project.  Or at least tolerating us after we had.  Thanks to Perry for coming back for a few days (let me know if my moth id is way off the mark), and to Helene and some of the other very nice people from the RSPB office for coming out to help and looking after us.

I’m lucky enough to have had some great deer encounters this month, especially with a (young?) roe deer – see photo below.  There’s been lots of nightjar action, presumably because the young are now old enough to be out and about.  There’s been one particular bird that flies over my van every evening, occasionally stopping to sit on the ground in front of me.  It’s amazing.  Nightjars really are lovely birds – I’m disappointed that I don’t have a camera able to take decent images in poor light.

I have a great respect for Satish Kumar, who has good things to say about Dartmoor.  Whilst I’m sure that it might not have been some people’s cup of tea, I’ve certainly felt very content to spend an extended period of time on the moor, away from the trappings of modern life.  Some areas of Dartmoor are fantastic and have a lovely feel to them, and I’ve come to really appreciate time without the communication tools that we now take granted, such as a mobile, email, internet, etc.  But, like Satish, I think that trees are an extremely important part of our environment.

It is suggested that the word Dart means oak, and the majority of Dartmoor would certainly have been covered in broadleaf woodland after the ice age.  For me the parts of Dartmoor that feel right are those parts that still feature native trees.  Although I have no data to prove it, just a short time spent in different areas is enough for it to be obvious that there are certainly at least more wild mammal and bird species in the areas with trees (all the many nightjars on Dartmoor are nesting in the plantations – which makes a mockery of claims that extended heathland is an ideal nightjar habitat, and also shows that the forestry commission are now sympathetic towards the wildlife living in their plantations), and seemingly more flying insects, arachnids, fungi, lichen and bryophytes.

So, yes, I agree with Satish that Dartmoor is a special place, but I think we should move on from the damaging practices of inappropriate intensive grazing, burning, and growing crops of spruce.  I’m particularly inspired by the work of organisations such as Moor Trees, who are helping to restore native woodland on and around the moor, and I hope that the forestry commission will consider gradually reverting their plantations back to a majority of native species coverage.  Improved tree cover on the moor will lead to more areas with greater species diversity, it’ll be more aesthetically pleasing, more spiritually fulfilling and, in turn, should lead to even higher numbers of (satisfied) visitors.

More nights on the Moor.  The weather starts hot this month, but then goes wet.  Very wet.  Before being generally mixed.  Still, it gives me a chance to try my new harsh weather clothing before my winter at Abernethy.

Highlights from the month include…

I quickly get over the stomach cramps; I see my first Willow tit (whilst just sat in my van!); on one of the night watches I watch lightning light up the sky to the South, without any thunder; Damo, from Aylesbeare, comes back to help out and regale me with stories of the East London gangsta scene; a nightjar flies over my camper pretty much every night then, suddenly, there are at least 4 nightjars around the van towards the end of the month; I watch two roe bucks rutting about 20m away from me one day in some woods – they walk side by side scraping their hooves on the ground and occasionally turn and lock horns – eventually the winner stands and bellows for a while, even though he can see me watching; we regularly see a red hind with a spritely little fawn; John and Chris, the two residential volunteers from the Exe (RSPB) come and help out; I see the bands of Jupiter and its 4 moons through the scope on a couple of clear nights, fantastic.

Given that I’ve been unable to update this while I’ve been up on the moor (and I have a lot of catching up to do) I thought it would be somewhat fraudulent of me to give you a blow by blow commentary of my time.  Besides, the early days on the job (with the RSPB) were mostly spent working nights, so I didn’t have the opportunity to capture too many images.  I was part of a team monitoring and protecting a pair of red backed shrike.  Further details and information on how the project fared will be released by the RSPB in due course, at which point I’ll link to it from here.

As I say, a large part of my time was spent patrolling the moor at night, on the lookout for anyone who might want to disturb the birds.  This provided me with a fantastic insight into what it must be like to be a security guard.  At least I was outside – so I had the opportunity to learn the night time habits of foxes, rutting roe deer and nightjars, as well as allowing me to experience a fabulous dawn chorus from the song thrushes, blackbirds, whitethroats, wrens, cuckoos, skylarks, to name but a few.

I met a large number of local birders through the project, some of which gave up their time to come out and help keep a round the clock watch on the birds – more about them later.  Perry from RSPB West Sedgemoor, and the three current residential volunteers from RSPB Aylesbeare, Damian, Rob and Tom, also came out to help out with the shifts.  Nice one chaps.

Highlights from June were…

seeing my first red backed shrike; seeing and hearing the nightjars; trying to work out what that crazy barking is at 3 in the morning (a roe buck); learning to sleep in hour long bursts and at any given opportunity (maybe learning isn’t the right word); seeing a pair of cuckoos getting frisky with each other; and, not having a mobile signal.  One other notable moment, whilst I had a stomach bug at the end of the month, I was on patrol and managed to keep myself from sicking up over someone who stopped me for conversation for maybe 20 minutes while I stood there, not talking, and thinking, ‘must hold it in, must hold it in…’.  How he couldn’t see this in my facial expression I’ll never know.  Thankfully I managed to hold my food down for the duration of the bug, and continue eating at least one decent meal a day.