Wednesday 1 February 2012

Where Have all the Raptors Gone?

Today following the recommendation of Wold Ranger yesterday for a venue with Peregrine, Marsh Harrier & Buzzard, we visited this venue at short notice after a terrible forecast for the East coast. Unfortunately, the Peregrine & Marsh Harrier were only noticeable for their absence, & a perched Buzzard could only be seen as a pale blob perched in a tree on a distant hillside.

We saw nearly 40 species. The highlights were Lynn's Snipe in the morning, Gillian's Green Woodpecker in the afternoon & finally the mass frenzy of Long-tailed Tits on some peanuts. I thought this was a fiction only portrayed in bird feeder catalogues, but it definitely greeted the pm team as they left South Hide.

Concerning raptors all the large ones were missing, but we saw a Kestrel in the far north west corner & at lunch time Dave had a Sparrowhawk perched in a dead young elm opposite his car at lunchtime, but that was it!
Long-tailed Tit
ditto
ditto
Robin
New Telescope Rest - Patent Pending

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sorry about your bad luck yesterday, I guess it was just a case of being in the right place at the right time on Tuesday.

Michael Flowers said...

Giving it another crack today. The Wild Bird reckoned i would have got a decent photo of the Marsh Harrier if I'd been in the right place at the right time - the old story!