Marsh Harrier

With reports of Ospreys not far to the  north, east and west of us today , hopes were high this afternoon when Bun and I arrived at Black Hole Marsh/Colyford Common to wait for one to fly over our patch. I haven't seen an Osprey on Patch since September 2008 (the bird pictured at the foot of this blog)  There have been a few but I've managed to miss them all. In fact I haven't seen an Osprey at all, anywhere, since then! I still haven't :-( What we did see, however was a Marsh Harrier, coincidently the first I've seen on patch for almost two years! It hung around for about an hour, periodically hunting over the Axe Marsh and Colyford Marsh reed beds before finally tiring of the constant harassment from the local crows. It flew off high south, fortunately not before it was seen by most who came down to see it. The three gorgeous Curlew Sandpipers were still on Black Hole Marsh, and a Little Ringed Plover was new on Colyford Marsh..

A couple of naff snaps of the Marsh Harrier from the 'super' super-zoom. It didn't do too badly all things considered.

Also today's addition to the'Naught Birders' series...

Some 'naughty birders' are serial offenders, so it seems. ;-)

Curlew Sandpipers

Three Curlew Sandpipers were showing very well indeed on Black Hole Marsh this morning. Great to see these on patch again, after what I think was a Curlew Sand free year last year.

Curlew Sandpiper

Curlew Sandpiper and Dunlin ( a very small Dunlin at that)
Here he is again, certainly made me look twice!

A couple of shots of all three having a bit of a quarrel.

Also a bit of video of all three Curlew Sands feeding.

One final addition, this evening I popped down to BHM again to see if anything new had turned up. It hadn't. But I did get a nice addition to my 'naughty birders' series of photos! :-)