Things were panning out to be very dull considering the lovely blue sky, 2 Skylark, 2 Teal, 7 Wigeon seemed pitiful in fact, but there was lots of raptors up, 10+ Buzzard, 2 Sparrowhawk, countless Kite, but no hirundines, no pipits, no finches.
Finally the first person to join me in Ron's hide was Marek, we got him the Skylark and mulled over how quiet it was, then Richard and Gill arrived, followed by Geoff.
I was scanning the sky, when I picked up a small raptor circling over the South end of the opposite landfill area, it was 'quivering' it wings as it turned, something I've seen in Kestrel and Merlin, but it seemed compact so had my attention. Looking into the sun no colour could be made out, but it only turned 5-6 times in small'ish circles, before heading away NNE, but it just kept accelerating faster and faster, vanishing between the trees near the high chimneys of the mansion to the East.
I had just enough time to get Marek on to it for a few seconds, I'm not sure if the others did see it, but am sure it was a Merlin, as I have never seen a Kestrel accelerate that fast over the flat, plus it was too compact, it looked more like a very small Peregrine in behaviour.
No comments:
Post a Comment