I've often thought that the better birding trips lead to the shittest blogposts and the shittest titles. This is a case in point. Here, have an unrelated black headed gull - it's probably going to be the highlight of this post. It, like the other couple of hundred we checked, stubbornly refused to be a med gull.
The Girl and I made the excellent decision yesterday afternoon to head over to Sheppey. I occasionally read reports from the Capel Fleet raptor view-point, or blog posts about people going to Sheppey and coming away having seen almost every winter raptor you could think of. I usually go slightly green. We didn't expect, when we made the effort, that it would work out so well.
We'd seen several marsh harriers, kestrels and a few corn buntings from the car, and in a quick 15 minutes before lunch had seen short-eared owl, ringtail hen harrier and a sparrowhawk.
Down at the Harty Ferry Inn the tide was too high for any wader action, but a female peregrine was hanging low over the pub and another ringtail hen harrier hunted a cover-crop, coming to within metres of the car. Most of the afternoon was spent back on the mound and in the immediate area, before we headed east to the track that leads down to Shell Ness. Standing with a couple of other birders it became clear that there were two rough-legged buzzards present, which were hunting along the seawall across the marsh. The views were distant - hardly any plumage details - but even at the distance they stood out on structure and flightstyle alone. At one stage I had a rough-leg, hen harrier, merlin and a common buzzard in the same scope view. I have a wide-angle eyepiece, and they were distant, put it was still pretty ridiculous.
Down at the Harty Ferry Inn the tide was too high for any wader action, but a female peregrine was hanging low over the pub and another ringtail hen harrier hunted a cover-crop, coming to within metres of the car. Most of the afternoon was spent back on the mound and in the immediate area, before we headed east to the track that leads down to Shell Ness. Standing with a couple of other birders it became clear that there were two rough-legged buzzards present, which were hunting along the seawall across the marsh. The views were distant - hardly any plumage details - but even at the distance they stood out on structure and flightstyle alone. At one stage I had a rough-leg, hen harrier, merlin and a common buzzard in the same scope view. I have a wide-angle eyepiece, and they were distant, put it was still pretty ridiculous.
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| Because I didn't take one yesterday, here's a shitty picture of a hen harrier from Rainham, ages ago. |
The final raptor count, across both sites, came to 2 rough-legged buzzards, 2 common buzzards, 5-6 hen harriers (all ringtail), numerous marsh harriers, 3 peregrines, numerous kestrels, 3 merlins, sparrowhawk, and singles of short-eared and barn owl. Beside the raptor overload other birds didn't get much of a look in, but the best of the rest was several thousand golden plovers, similar numbers of lapwings, 2 green sands, a few hundred curlew, and around 40 turnstone with a single ringed plover.
Very successful. Apart from the pictures, because there were so many birds around I pretty much didn't know what to point the camera at and because my puny 300mm lens would do nothing to a distant raptor. These are the best you're getting.
AMAZING.
AMAZING.
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