SEOs and MRs in the LDV

Worked at home today as I needed to finish a report so I got across to Geoff Smith Hide at North Duffield Carrs early evening to see what the score was today. First impression when walking to hide was "Whose pulled the plug out?" There was clearly a lot less water on Bubwith, was a similar story looking across to Aughton, though the water levels at North Duffield was not particularly [visibly] much different to Sunday afternoon when I was last down.

Anyway, as I set up my scope I could see that there was one Short-eared Owl sat on a fencepost.  It got up and hunted about for 20 minutes or so before it decided to hunt right at the top of the reserve making it more-or-less out of sight, which was a shame as the light was quite nice and I was hoping it was going to come close.  It did look a bit stressed and kept looking up, maybe there was something high up giving it cause for concern? A bit too far away for my camera, however just in range for the phone-scope combo!

Short-eared Owl (phone-scoped) looking at something.... 

Short-eared Owl (phone-scoped) looking at something...

Short-eared Owl (phone-scoped)  

Short-eared Owl (phone-scoped) 

There was much less Marsh Harrier activity tonight, with only two, possibly three birds present at the back of the reserve, maybe it's all coming to an end... There was loads of geese about tonight, though no interesting ones! Quite a lot of Teal, Wigeon etc. A sizeable flock of Lapwing was still present, though again distant. Had one Barn Owl and one Kestrel.  Lots of Snipe with a potential Jack Snipe that appeared to have been flushed from Bubwith as it dropped into some rank vegetation... possible.

The 'best' bird I had today was a Canary flying round the garden! Does that count on the year-list Tim??? Also had a small flock of Goldcrest move through in the morning, a bit of a garden rarity.

Hopefully not long for the proper rarities to start flowing...