Once again the weather let us down this weekend; Grey, rainy and windy. We parked up and waited to see if the sun would manage any kind of display but the rain and cloud watered down its valiant effort to a thin lightbulb effect. Whist the coots acted beligerently and the lapwings peewitted for all they were worth, a marsh harrier passed overhead, calling and displaying. Seconds behind came another, this time high in the sky, behaving for all the world like a buzzard. It looked like she was struggling against the wind to maintain her direction. It's a good time of year for Elmley, the wheatears are back! Spotted a pair, wonderful spring plumaged male and his elegant mate. The male seemed happy to sit on his little lump of mud whilst the female busied herself amongst the grass. Similar to a sunday at my house really! When he did finally move off we made our way to the car park toilets for a pit stop, past the resident kestrel sitting in her bush by the road. We stopped long enough to watch her plunge to the grass and dispatch a worm. The little owl was sitting at the entrance to his box but soon ducked back inside as the rain got heavier, it seems as though the other box will be occupied by stock doves this year. A brief wander down the path through the orchard revealed lots of chaffinches, house sparrows, greenfinches, goldfinches and a chiffchaff calling out the spring despite the weather. Time was limited this week but there was time to relocate the wheatear on the way home. Now we wait for the yellow wags, swallows, martins and the hobbies to return...
My birding buddy Andy sneakily took a couple of pics of my sketchbook on sunday!
Mike