North Devon bits & bobs

The weekend of 04/10 & 05/10, Em & I headed down to North Devon again to visit her mum in Bishops Tawton, near Barnstaple. Managed to fit a little bit of wildlife in too which was pleasing. 
On both days, a stunning Wall Brown butterfly was chilling in Em's mum's greenhouse together with a Speckled Wood. It was even more than happy to wander onto my hand which was pretty cool!

The stream adjacent to the house had a good count of 3 Dipper, as well as a flyby Kingfisher.

On the Saturday I popped over to Instow and took a walk along the estuary. The cricket ground had a nice 1st-winter Med Gull with Common Gulls. Along by the estuary were a small flock of Rock Pipit and waders roosting on the rocks included a large flock of Oystercatcher as well as a smaller number of Curlew, Redshank, 2-3 Turnstone & 3 Knot.

On Sunday, I spent a short time along the coast at Hartland Point for a bit of a seawatch, with the vein hope I might find a Balearic Shearwater. Sadly no shearwaters and actually it was pretty quiet with several small groups of Auks, several Gannets, 5 distant Terns, probably Arctic, 1 Peregrine, 1 Raven & several Rock Pipit.