Stepped out of the back door this morning to see a commotion amongst the crows in Long Spinny about 600 yards away. I saw a large raptor gliding through on the other side of the trees, it was obviously something special – you just know. I shot in to get my bins and a male Goshawk soared up and made its way across the back of the house about a 100ft up and we both followed it is circled round before gaining height and glided off in the general direction of Maxstoke. This bird was an absolute stunner the size and power where obvious, it was blue-grey above white below with fine barring on the white underparts. The bulk of the chest and the white supercillium where other obvious features – easily the best species on my garden list relegating Osprey and Merlin to also rans.
Went over with the Captain tonight but it was rather quiet, lots of hirundines and around 10 Swift. Duck numbers were good with around 50 Gadwall, 5 Wigeon, 10 Shoveler. There was no sign of the Black-necked Grebe today and I had a good search so that looks like it has gone. We bumped into Steve Cawthray who had seen a couple of Hobby but little else.
In fact we searched the shoreline with the scope all the way round and didn’t see a single wader (including Lapwing). On arrival back at the car park we were having a last look when we heard a wader call way above us it was relatively unfamiliar but we suspected Spotted Redshank, I have all the bird calls on my phone and I played back Spot Red and the call was the same it was quite late and we scanned the shore we could see but we couldn’t pick up the bird, so I suspect that I flew straight over.
All in all it was an end to an eventful day – I do like this time of year.
No comments:
Post a Comment