Have you ever had a mad minute? Everything seems quiet, then all of a sudden wham! incredible birds and just as fast they're gone.
It wasn't even a minute today - sitting having lunch at Fox Tor on a walk with my folks, having seen only corvids, Mipits, and a lone Skylark - coming from the west, I only spotted it when it was right in front of me, following the wall at the base of the slope a ringtail Hen Harrier. As I'm calling out directions, overtaking the harrier, flying low about a third of the way up the slope, a male Merlin. Before the Merlin's out of sight comes the call "There's another one!" - a female Merlin, higher in the air and further up the slope, is following. Before I can even try to get back on the harrier and try to age it; "Another one, its got white spots on the wings" Seemingly following the Merlins, flying straight and level, slightly above us about as far out as the f. Merlin was, with very even mechanical wingbeats, silent, unmistakable, a male Nightjar. :eek!: While I was on the Nightjar, my parents were following the Hen Harrier, which turned south flying up a gert to our east before I could get back on it.
There isn't a smiley of your jaw dropping clean off your face, is there?
About 10 minutes later, the Merlins came back the opposite way, same formation. [We later found the remains of a fresh kill to the south, near Ducks' Pool - by the buff-fringed dark brown primaries and lack of streaked feathers, I think a female Wheatear. There were two bone fragments with still-wet blood, one seemed to be a pelvis, the other I couldn't even vaguely i.d., which would suggest Merlin rather than harrier, as I'd have thought a small passerine's pelvis wouldn't bother the larger bird?]
The raptors were hunting, their passing together a coincidence, but then a Nightjar? Maybe it had been feeding over Foxtor Mire last night [certainly still plenty of butterflies around], roosted nearby, and then the raptors, livestock, or walkers flushed it. Following it's flightpath back leads to Burrator - a much better roost spot, but if it was flushed, why come out over the open moor?
Other birds - 2 Snipe [one flushed at Plym Head, the other near Nun's Cross Farm], a flock of ~100 medium-sized birds, very distant to the south of Sheepstor [probably Woodpigeon], distant Buzzard and Kestrel, 3+ Raven, 11 Redwing [over, NW], Golden Plover heard calling near Eylesbarrow Mine, ~40 Jackdaw in field S of Wind Tor.
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