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...

Owls about that: Amazing SEO Pictures!

Barn Owls were again present this morning with all three seen again, even though I was a bit later than on Monday morning.

I thought they may have gone off to roost before I got to their favourite field but luckily they were still out feeding. As cool as Barn Owls are though they can be trumped, for example by Short-eared Owls. There was at least 1 again on the local patch this evening, with another Barn Owl too! So another owltastic day! Apparently there was at least 6 Short-eared Owls in the lower part of the Lower Derwent Valley (LDV) on Saturday - awesome stuff. I wonder what the record count in the LDV is???

Check out this incredible set of hunting Short-eared Owl pictures taken just up the road by Paul McMullen. These are reproduced here below with permission.


Short-eared Owl © Paul McMullen


Short-eared Owl © Paul McMullen


Short-eared Owl © Paul McMullen

The rest of my walk this morning was fairly uneventful but the snow having almost gone now made for a nice change! There was a couple of Dunnock and Chaffinch in full song too! Spring here soon!

I worked at home today, didn't notice too much in/around the garden as I had my head in a laptop most of the day however I did notice a Cormorant fly over while having my breakfast and a male Sparrowhawk while I was having my lunch that was putting the fear of god into the local Goldfinch, Chaffinch and Greenfinch - oh and I had a Tree Sparrow fly through. Thats about it. Honest!