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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Worm hunting? (1 Viewer)

Dave Deere

New member
Hello, first time on here and an amateur birder. I've been prompted to join having been watching at least 27 Buzzards, a handful of Red Kites and a couple of Herons (and a Kestrel yesterday) standing in our newly drilled field in East Hampshire, England (although a mass of Gulls and Crows just arriving seem to have made them scarce). I've never seen these birds in such large numbers and don't know whether it's normal. This has certainly never happened in previous years on such a scale. Just wanted to share my sighting. Ta
 
Hello, first time on here and an amateur birder. I've been prompted to join having been watching at least 27 Buzzards, a handful of Red Kites and a couple of Herons (and a Kestrel yesterday) standing in our newly drilled field in East Hampshire, England (although a mass of Gulls and Crows just arriving seem to have made them scarce). I've never seen these birds in such large numbers and don't know whether it's normal. This has certainly never happened in previous years on such a scale. Just wanted to share my sighting. Ta

Over the years, I've seen sizeable numbers of Common Kestrels patrolling dried-out shallow pools and delving in the cracks with their feet to pull out worms and other invertebrates (Seewinkel Eastern Austria). I've watched Common and Long-legged Buzzards in ploughed fields in Cyprus walking about and scratching at clumps, again to feed on anything that moved - lizards, worms, small mammals. I've also occasionally seen a Common Buzzard walking at the bottom of a ditch, seeking prey.

Grey Herons quite often seem to spend time in the middle of fields, sometimes hunting, but more often seemingly just resting, and it may be that this is what the birds you saw were doing. The middle of a ploughed field (or one with short agitation) offers good daytime sightlines against land and avian predators, and the larger the group, the more eyes there are to watch for danger. Many bird species on migration will occupy large open spaces (a huge assemblage of hirundines affected by cold autumn weather once closed the US air base at Lakenheath for three days), but perhaps the commonest typical occurrences in UK are inland roosts of gulls in large fields where there is no farming activity, and a complete absence of any open water.

Quite often, other bird species (Lapwing, Golden Plover, Curlew, Woodpigeon and lark flocks) associate with the gull groups. However, your assemblage is likely much rarer!
MJB
 
Dave, it is indeed normal behaviour for the red kite. They will often land on fields that the farmer is working in, taking advantage of the invertebrates etc that have been churned up to the surface.

One year observing a kite feeding its young on a nest via CCTV, almost a full day consisted of both kite parents bringing in worms to the single chick in the nest. Come late afternoon, I swear the chick was sick and tired of the sight of worms! One of the local farmers had been working his field, hence the non-stop availability of food for the kite chick, in the form of worms that day.
 
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