best birds seen whilst working (1 Viewer)

[Georgebirds]

My best work bird was a short-eared owl at sunset on a midwinter day. I saw it at a distance across the field and at first took it for a barn owl, til the colour became clearer and I realised what I was seeing. I stood there watching as it came closer and closer, banked two loops directly overhead with the low pink sun lighting up the underside it's wings, then swung away out of sight over the hedge to carry on hunting. Gorgeous!

 

[Farnboro John]

After 37 years working for MOD I've among other things had an office in the Falkland Islands from which I could see Upland and Ruddy-headed Geese, Black-necked Swans, Variable Hawks and Long-tailed Meadowlarks and gained some offshore trips netting a slew of seabirds including penguins and albatrosses: also trips to Kenya to let contracts for local supply of exercising troops that got me about 70 species.

In this country not so much: I was one of the first birders at MOD's Bristol Abbey Wood facility and pushed the list from zero to over 100 over 18 months including Barn Owl, Knot and Bewick's Swan. Before that I worked in London and apart from some visible migration the most entertaining sight out of the window was when I responded to sudden pandemonium from the local corvids and gulls and saw an immature Steppe Eagle thundering along the concrete canyon outside, hotly pursued by the scavengers. I rang London Zoo to ask if they'd lost anything and they said cheerfully "No, but we know a man who has!" Apparently it was AWOL from an advertising photoshoot in one of the parks and was tempted back by food after about three days on the lam.

John