Sunday April 22

I met Dave as usual for another stroll around the patch. There had been no shift in wind direction and it remained chilly, so I wasn't too surprised to see pretty much the same birds as yesterday. The only additions were two Canada Geese, and the reappearance of last weekend's White Wagtail. Five Meadow Pipits flew over, and we saw three Wheatears. John Yardley had seen two Shelduck, but by the time Dave and I turned up only one remained. We showed John the Little Owl. Finally, as the breeze got up we started to notice there were lots of raptors in the sky, about a dozen Buzzards, at least three Sparrowhawks, several Kestrels, and then two extremely distant Falcons buzzing a Buzzard. They weren't flying like Kestrels and had the shape of something good, perhaps Hobbies. However, they were too distant and although we may have seen one of them again later, we eventually had to accept we weren't going to clinch them. Annoying.




The Shelduck