birdpix

Watching corvids get out of a tree in their hundreds had me fascinated ,they had seen a couple of buzzards and a ridiculas number of them immediately mobbed the offending raptor.Then the wiffling kicked in and they were back to their lofty perch again ,many corvid conversations going on at once,they were probably saying to each other something along the lines of: did you see that bloody buzzard ,thinks he can fly past us without regreting it? oh I know what a liberty,Id hate to be as stupid as a buzzard.The buzzard was probably thinking ,neurotic rooks ,I was quite happily riding the thermals day dreaming about rabbits when these psychos appear from nowhere....anyway

A quick blast around Sutton Lawns failed to uncover any bramblings,there was a greater spotted woodpecker in the trees where if you are lucky there are bramblings.

At Carr vale the previous day there had been a cattle egret ,not today however.Cattle egrets are breeding in Dorset ,they look likely to colonise in the same way that little egrets have( and hopefully glossy ibis too) trouble is ,Ive never actually seen one in this country before.Last time I clapped eyes on a cattle egret it was in Egypt ,where it would be fair to say that they are common along the Nile Delta.The pink footed geese more than made up for a lack of cattle egrets .Before I had got to the viewing platform ,several people had told me that two huge skeins of PFs had been over .I saw the third huge skein -and the forth.There were lots of twitcher types around ,between the half dozen of them ,they counted over 400 each time.I started counting them ,but gave up and instead enjoyed watching them -something the twitchers apparently forgot to do .Its magical witnessing migration en masse ,as its in progress,its right up there as one of my most enjoyable moments bird watching this year ,even competing with the 60 000 puffins on Farne.The kingfisher sat on a post seemed an anti climax ,almost un noticed were the buzzard and huge flock of two my favourites golden plover and lapwings sharing a field to feed in before getting into the air together.And of course Ive always got my first UK Cattle Egret to look forward to preferably hanging around  with some spoonbills , which would be nice...