Birding from dawn to dusk

Rather than do a long distance twitch today, I decided to go local and see what I could find. First up was a trip out to Cassiobury Park in Watford for a little owl which has taken up residence in an oak tree. I left early as the light was coming up hoping to avoid the crowds in the park!The directions were not that precise, but I got to to the car park and headed down towards a couple of likely looking oak trees near the cafe.

I was lucky. In the slightly gloomy early morning light I could see a small greyish shape sitting out in the branches.

Little owls are the most diurnal of all the owls, and even though this one wasn't hunting by the daylight it was quite happy to just sit there whilst this strange man lurked about near its tree. I spent about an hour with it, whilst the assorted dog walkers passed by. The light was awful most of the time but the owl was sitting so still I could slow the shutter speed down to 1/60 to keep the ISO low. I was pretty pleased with the outcome.

After the owl I went home for a warming coffee then headed out to Maple Lodge. It was really quiet there although the clubhouse was full up with retired gentlemen having tea and biscuits!! The only thing I spotted was this mallard having a great wash from Teal hide, ending up with its feet in the air at times.

A friendly robin also kept me company.

I was heading to the exit for a cup of tea when I checked my phone. Top of the list was horned lark at Staines Reservoir. This was another old friend, having been around in early December but then disappeared. We know its the same bird as it is not our commoner race but the rarer American race. Anyway, it was now heading towards late afternoon so I hurried up and sped round the M25 to get to the reservoir. As I was walking up though Dom Pia (aka reservoir dom) the finder was leaving. The bird had been spooked by a peregrine and disappeared. Now Staines is a giant place and you can lose a small bird very easily. For the next 20 minutes or so about 6 or us staked out the causeway but only a few linnets and meadow pipits kept us interested. Then, a birder about a 100 yards away actually rang one of us, rather than shouting, to say he had it. Cue a rather amusing dash by old-enough-to-know-better birders down to him .

The bird was in the gravel below us, but it was some distance and the light was poor. Horned larks, or shore larks as we also know them, are really cryptically camouflaged and can vanish in the pebbles.

It wa quite happy though and started feeding amongst the pebbles.

It has a gorgeous yellow bib and an almost piratical look to it. I lasted about 30 minutes with it before the light really started to fade and I headed back round the M25 for my cup of tea. Really nice surprise that though you have to wonder where it has been for those weeks it disappeared.