Hello again—Here’s a grisly story (true)
The other day, I left my house by the front door, and noticed a big bird in Nan Underhill’s drive. Actually, it turned out to be two birds, one quite alive and the other not quite alive! A female sparrow hawk had caught a pigeon, and was sitting on top of it, pecking away. It saw me coming, but refused to move initially. As I drew closer, the hawk 
flew away, but straight into Nan’s window. It recovered, and flew into the willow tree. When I returned to the scene, about ten minutes later, the hawk was back, continuing to feed. Half an hour later, it had gone, and had left the corpse behind, presumably having eaten its fill!
Nature in the raw, eh?
Our winter visitors are back. Yes, a large posse of fieldfares have arrived on time from Scandinavia. Many more will come here soon, and fill the apple trees in Angus’s orchard. These are big colourful thrushes, which come every Winter, and make their chak-chak call as they fly over. I haven’t seen their smaller cousins, the redwings yet. We don’t get as many of them here.
On the river Exe estuary, the winter visitors have also arrived. Thousands of wading birds, wild ducks and wild geese are already there. They have come from Iceland and Russia. The Exe is an internationally important area for these birds.
I strongly recommend to anyone interested in birds, particularly wetland birds, to take a trip on the Birdwatching boat, which travels from Exmouth Dock up to Topsham. There are two boats—one is the Stuart Line and the other the
RSPB boat. Both are excellent trips.
Alan Jones
