Target number one was hen harriers -which would be a year-tick for me, albeit a really late one! The location was the Burgh near Burpham. This is part of the Norfolk estate. It is also an area which is known very well to Wendy and Michael, two of our relations, who live nearby and have got some stunning photos of the wildlife there. The estate is managed in a very wildlife-friendly way despite being a pheasant shooting estate. There are lots of large fields margins over-planted with wild-flowers. These in turn bring in lots of small birds and rodents which of course then bring in things which eat them. Hence it is a bit of a hotspot for raptors especially in the Winter. I met up with Wendy just after breakfast and we headed out to Canada Barn on the edge of the estate and walked out across the downs.
It was generally pretty quiet on the first part of the walk, till we got to the dewpond area. This is where two or more hen harriers have been reported over the last couple of weeks. A few kites were circling around and buzzards drifted on the few thermals available in the cold wind. The fields are very good for wildlife but not so good for viewing it as we quickly found out. At the bottom of the slope we saw a dark shape quartering the field to our left. The only problem was that you can only see it though the thick hedges which form the field margin. We found a gap and by peering through saw the distinctive white-rump of a female hen harrier.
Males are gorgeous white, grey and black specimens. Females (and juveniles) are duller brown but have that distinctive white rump once their monica of "ring-tails". In the low winter sun the colours really stood out but unfortunately we never got close enough to it to get good photos.
It, or rather they, were quartering low over the fields hunting for small prey. It had to be at least two birds as one had a distinctive hole in its wing where some primaries were missing. We picked up a possible third bird on the way back but can't say for certain it wasn't this one ranging into the next valley. It certainly covered a lot of ground and from where we stood by the dewpond it circled round us, at half a mile of more distance often. We could see it at great distance moving along the hedge lines and field margins, often dropping down presumably onto prey.
It was raptor central round there, and from one place as well as the hen harriers we saw buzzards, kites, merlins and kestrels.
Otherwise it was mainly small birds feeding on the seeds and a distant hare.
After this, and with the light starting to fail, we moved to Pulborough Brooks for the short-eared owls. Wendy and Michael had seen 2 or 3 hunting recently so with the clock moving past 3 we were at the ideal time for them. The light had got really poor though with heavy cloud cover. Almost as soon as we got to the field a brown shape drifted up from the grass. SEO's will roost during the day in open fields, hunkered down in the grass. They come up to feed in the late afternoon and are the easiest owls to see during daylight.
We watched them for 40 minutes until it was almost dark. There were at least 2 and possibly 3 birds hunting over the field.
The photos do not do them justice. For the technically-minded I was on ISO 5000 or more for most of them, trying to solve that insoluble problem of low light and a moving subject. They weren't worried by us hiding in a hedge and flew pretty close at times, seeing to eyeball as us strangers objects in their landscape.
Generally they seemed to ignore each other but occasionally they entered the same airspace and flew up together before drifting apart again.
Another good day albeit one that left me with the desire for a bit more. I think I know where to go to get better views of the harriers and with a sunlit evening the owls will definitely be worth another visit. Never satisfied I suppose!!
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