I’ve been upgrading kit just lately so no posts but all back up and running now.
I set myself a target to concentrate on birds of prey a couple of weeks ago. I wanted to see as many as I could in one day.
Usually the best place to go in winter is on the coast or around the Humber. I also helps to look at the tide book and coincide a visit with high tide as some of them (especially the falcons) become more active when the tide pushes the waders of the Humber mud.
So with high tide around 11am I set off for Spurn early with the hope of finding my first target species-Merlin.
As I walked down the road at Spurn I ticked of my first-a kestrel hovering distantly in the half-light.
On I went pausing to photograph gulls against the rising sun. I carried on across the breach and as it was looking as though one wouldn’t show I spotted a small falcon sat on a piece of lost fisshing gear-bingo! it was a merlin. These small falcons are my favourite bird of prey and when the hunt their prey (usuall small passerine birds like meadow pipits) they pursue them relentlessly diving and weaving until their quarry literally runs out of energy.
It took of as i approached but with a canny piece of manouvering I managed to get close for some reasonable photos.
After I got my shots of a merlin I had a ride out to Sammy’s Point-nothing much to see there but as I drove back down Peter Lane a distant buzzard perched on a hedgerow gave me my third raptor of the day. After that I headed off to Skeffling and another two buzzards one posing nicely on the top of a barn owl nest provided a further photo opportunity.
By now the tide had come right in and all of the waders were congregated along the shoreline. This provides the perfect opportunity for peregrine falcons to hunt. So it proved-an almighty commotion erupted as thousands of waders were scattering in all directions as a peregrine falcon dive bombed them repeatedly. What a spectacular sight! It carried on for about 10 minutes and just when I was beginning to think it might be unsuccessful it literally stuck out a foot and plucked an unfortunate wader (looked like a bar tailed godwit but was quite distant) out of the sky. It then settled on the salt marsh to devour its catch and the show was over.
Once the Peregrine had settled my attention focussed on the set aside field on the northern side of the flood bank. There are plans for this area to be re-developed into saltmarsh which should be a great addition to the area. In the meantime the fields have been left as fallow providing some great habitat in itself for owls and harriers.
There were at least 4 marsh harriers on show most of them quite distant however a ‘cream crown’ came quite close allowing for some decent photos.
The next one that came along was a hen harrier. Hunting just above the grasses it was weaving its way down from the east always quite distant but a magnificent bird all the same (on my second visit 2 were briefly together). They quite often fan out their tail for more agility and to get a photo of that close up would be something special. The day just kept on getting better!
Kestrels were on show pretty much all of the time I was there-this one came close in nice light.
As the day wore on the short eared owls became more active. There were at least 6 up in the air at once at one point. They constantly patrol up and down at times coming quite close. There were a couple of disputes going on-one between an owl and a kestrel and it appeared that the kestrel was trying to steal a catch from one of the owls. Also the owls were constantly bickering with each other again a great spectacle.
In the last light of the day a sparrowhawk shot across the field and I just managed to catch its backend as it dived into the hawthorn hedge no doubt looking for a last meal before night.
Birds of prey are pretty awesome birds but the last 2 weekends have been brilliant-the sheer amount and the amount of food needed to sustain that amount of birds gave a glimmer of hope that things don’t look to bad this winter in our small corner of the world.
