Friday 2 September 2011


I made a quick visit to Migrant Alley last evening, and watched the the Whinchats feeding, I also watched a flock of mainly young Goldfinch's on the thistle heads, and whilst out added SONGTHRUSH (40), STOCK DOVE (41) and CANADA GOOSE (42) to the months list.

                   Above is one of the Goldfinch's on the thistle heads

Back to this morning, and the walk to work was a rather quiet affair, with the only noteworthy sighting being a lone YELLOW WAGTAIL flying over. However, walking back through Migrant Alley on the way home, another WHINCHAT was found on the paddock fence line, maybe it was one of the two seen yesterday ?


Above:  The Whinchat at Migrant Alley today

Whilst at home, and having a quick sandwich before going out again, I received a text saying that an Osprey had been seen just to the north of my patch that morning. I wolfed down the rest of my sandwich and headed out to my sky watching seat, a few minutes later I was sitting in the hot sunshine, uncomfortably hot, but I stuck it out and scanned the sky to the north. An hour later I had seen nothing at all, i'd not even added anything to the months list!

I moved off out of the hot sun and sought out the shade of the tall hedge, where I carried on scanning the sky from there, a JAY (43) flew over, at least I got something for the September list! about half an hour later I spotted a large bird in the distance, could it be the Osprey ? I looked through my bins.......and......YES! An OSPREY (104, 44), fantastic!!  I watched it go over my patch and away to the SE, then a few minutes later it came back, right over me! This time a got a few photo's, not very good, but good enough  :-)  As it moved away back to where it had come from, it was joined by two BUZZARDS (45), what a magnificent sight that was!  I stayed another half an hour, and recorded 3 more raptors, SPARROWHAWK, HOBBY and KESTREL to make it 5 species of Raptor in the same day - not very often I do that!

 Below are my attempts at photographing the wonderful Osprey





8 comments:

Phil said...

Fantastic stuff Warren! You must be well pleased.
I have e mailed you re the Osprey and a possible sighting myself from the garden today.

Anonymous said...

You`re jamming in on some decent species of late, Warren. Well done, mate.

Warren Baker said...

Cheers Dean, Phil. Yep, I'm well pleased with that :-)

Lancashire and Lakeland Outback Adventure Wildlife Safaris said...

Jammy begger ;) Had a very similar experience today with a mate phoning to sa a large raptor was heading in our diirection high up, but three of us couldn't pick it out:( never mind...always tomorrow

Keep that list tcking over

Cheers

Davo

Bob Bushell said...

The Osprey is everybody's love, you shot it with your camera. Superb.

Wilma said...

It is always a treat to see ospreys!

Jason K said...

Nice one on the Osprey Warren..bet you were chuffed to bits mate!

Unknown said...

I go away for a week to a place where Osprey breed and return to find Osprey photos from down the road and possibly North off me too. I am not sure I will go away again!