Sunday November 3

The day began cloudy with a very light south-westerly breeze, but the sun started to break through during the morning.

Dave and I opted for the traditional circuit, and things progressed quietly at first. An adult Peregrine was perched on a pylon, while four Stonechats and five Yellowhammers occupied the ridge field. We arrived at the flash field and counted 76 Teal, 75 Mallard, two Shovelers, two Lapwings, and two Grey Herons were pretty much standard fare (although the Teal count was a good one).

The day fired into life when four dog-walkers accompanied by about five unleashed dogs ambled past. I have to admit I gave them a less than friendly grunt of greeting, because I knew that their dogs were about to cause havoc. Sure enough all the ducks panicked and started to fly around, and with them was a Little Egret.

Little Egret

I'd like to think we would have seen it even if it hadn't been flushed to the furthest flash.

A few minutes later we observed that instead of heading up the footpath, the group of walkers had chosen to follow pretty much the route we were intending to take. In the distance they flushed a Buzzard and we decided we would let them get further ahead of us. Fortunately Dave was still scanning the horizon, because the next thing I heard him say was "Short-eared Owl". There followed several seconds of anxiety as he tried to get me on it, eventually saying "its below the Buzzard" I locked onto it and thus broke my patch year-list record with a bit of a belter.

It was pretty distant but I managed to get some record shots, and even some film of it, as it circled over the ridge before getting higher and higher before we lost it entirely.

Short-eared Owl

This was only my second record here, my last being a pair in December 2013. However, Ivan Sansom  saw and photographed one here this April, so its actually the second this year. I suspect Short-eared Owl are more regular than my own records suggest. We tend to walk around fields rather than across them, and I have heard several accounts from shooters of flushed owls which were likely to have been this species.

So I guess the dog-walkers did us a favour. We'll never know whether we would have seen it without their unwitting assistance.