UKH

Plenty of wheatear action. The male perched on a post was near to where I live - a real treat.

Good views of barn owl. At one point, it flew within 20 feet or less, but the gloomy light and fast flight meant zero photo. Yellowhammers singing well, this one lives in a solar farm. Roe buck loosing their velvet. 

Ruff and black tailed godwit, both showing great plumage. The ruff probably has a way to go yet, still beautiful though. Marshside, near Southport. 

Maybe time for me to call in at Marshside again.

This evening popped into Doffcocker (Bolton) for a quick visit whilst Mrs was at physio. As expected too early for the Common Terns to be back, apparently nothing special there but carried on walking round.

At the dam end, plenty of domestic geese, Canada Geese, Tufted Duck and Black-headed Gulls so thought I better check them all out just in case...

Bingo - 1 of them was a Mediterranean Gull in full adult summer plumage - it flew off whilst I was still scanning to see if there was more than one, then a family started throwing bread for the geese, etc - the gulls all screaming about and the Mediterranean Gull returned, flew around several times going past me very closely - easily within 10' - best views I've ever had of one - brilliant 😁

Nice photos - how did you tempt the wheatears to pose for the photos?!!

Oh Ruff; hoping to see them again. Only once seen two of them together, but not in summer plumage.

As for owl, lovely shot; I’ll need to try harder just to see any owl!

Now that Willow warblers are back up here and with Chiffchaffs, I think I made a reasonably good job of IDing between them so far. The songs are a big help now, but this year the colours look sufficiently different, at least meantime.

Great wheatear pics!

I got a good view of a hare the other day. It came so close I couldn't zoom out fast enough to get it all in the photo!

Great shot, had nobody told it that hares usually run away 😁

Two years ago I was watching a couple of hares hopping towards me along a hedge line. They kept coming, passed underneath the gate I was leaning on and across the track into the next field. I kept still and it was as if I wasn't even there.

Nice. Coincidentally, you could be the envy of the birder that told me about birdle if she knew!!

She said she is had been trying to see and get good photo of hares recently. Wrong place wrong time, made worse by her husband messaging her recently to say he had seen 12 hares together! In response to the question did he get photos/video, he said no!

Hard to get close to hares.

Channel Wag

The hare I saw today legged it when I was about 50 metres away. Great animals though.  

This morning, saw an owl type bird in the distance, but not quite barn owly. Got my bins on it: short eared owl !!  It was in an odd place (a very barren field, but they will be heading to their summer residency’s so can pop up anywhere).  

I think that's the current popular name, mind you I was looking in my 1970's Hamlyn guide for the Yellow Wag sub-species so no doubt classifications have changed since then.

Had my first sighting of Short eared owl tonight; one initially then joined by another 😎!! Lovely birds to observe; so graceful yet agile. 

I decided to take a chance and visit an area a couple of birders said they had seen owls and struck lucky just as I was about to leave. Hopefully I’ve got some ok ish photos - they were quite far away most of the time keeping well clear of me, and the light wasn’t great with haze.

Also, saw a Merlin was hunting nearby to the owls. 

Wow!!  And well done. They are a magical bird. As are Merlin, literally literally !!

I got more great views of a single Short-eared Owl on Friday in the usual place at Little Woolden Moss - male (apparently) with real angry look because the feathers immediately around the eyes were all black - there are still people turning up just to watch and photo the owls there, apparently over the winter the largest number seen there was 9!

But I missed the Black Grouse in the nature reserve which must have been not long after chatting to the person that's always seeing it - apparently it was sat on one of the bund walls for 20 minutes 😭😭😭

Didn’t realise they had such large numbers of SEO’s.  Great birds, and I should go over there more often. 

Todays highlights: greenshanks, spot reds in almost full summer plumage, little gulls (2), white and yellow wag, barn owl, whitethroats, LRPs….been out since dawn and I’m goosed !! What a day though - best weather since last spring?  
Also: 3 types of egret.