On the River Exe

We had a wonderful day today. Our excuse was that we were celebrating our granddaughter Samantha‘s birthday, at a distance unfortunately. We parked at Powderham church and walked to the Turf Hotel for coffee. The route is along the river Exe  and all along the path a little Wheatear kept us company. At the lock just before the Turf a kingfisher was showing,remaining stationary on the bank for a long time and a crowd gathered. After a break in the hotel gardens we walked on along the canal path. Canal and river are side by side here.We were lucky to see a marsh harrier, a spoonbill, and a cattle egret on the marshes to our left, adding to our list for the year. The tide was right for the little ferry to run across the river to Topsham, a favourite  place for pottering about and visiting the museum where we had tea. We came back and stopped at the Turf again for our evening meal. There were some feeding swallows putting on a show for us. We teamed up with our wheatear again for the walk back on a lovely evening, and also saw a kingfisher resting on one of the parked yachts. The extras are the old Ferrymans cottage and the beautiful evening light on the river.