I love those crisp blue days you can get in Winter. The light can be stunning and photography is a joy. What you also get though are those days when it never seems to get light. A blanket of dank, grey cloud descends and you know it will be a "record shot" day with high ISO settings and grainy images. Still, doesn't mean you shouldn't get out there and with Autumn rapidly moving to Winter there were still a few targets to go for. With a day to go and find things I set out to go North, up to my old stomping ground around Peterborough. The first and main target was Holme Fen near Yaxley. This is part of the great fen project, a large area of "rewilded" land replicating the older fen habitat. Lots of open land with dotted woods and dikes. It is maturing nicely and has become a very good spot in winter for rough-legged buzzards, These are winter visitors to our shores and are one of the species which can have good and bad years. This year already seems to be a good one with quite a few present both on their normal over-wintering areas and on newer patches. Holme Fen is a known hot spot for them and one or two have been sighted and showing well for the last week or so.
I got to New Fen Drove near Yaxley about 8 with a bit promise in the sky. The cloud was broken and some weak sun was pushing through. I started scanning the fields and ditches looking for large raptors. I quickly got onto both common buzzard and red kite as well as good-sized flocks of lapwings. Rough-legged buzzards are slightly larger than our common ones though not noticeably so. They have longer, narrower wings, a distinct white base to their tail and can be very white on their breast. They also have a slightly different jizz in that they hover when hunting rather than gliding down off perches.
After only 15 minutes or so a man pulled up in a van and pointed out to me where the RLB both is normally and also was about 5 minutes ago!!! The birders grapevine working well there and nice of him to stop. It was only a few hundred yards away but mainly it was looking in the opposite direction to the one I was looking in!!! I relocated and almost immediately got onto two or three raptors in the far distance, one of which was clearly hovering and showing white. It was almost certainly the RLB but not a good enough view to be sure. The public track by the gate where I was parked lead straight to it so I gathered my gear and set off. The weather was changing by the minute though and by the time I got closer to where I had seen it the clouds had come over and it was very gloomy.
The area was pretty open, rough scrubby land with a few sheep dotted around as well. It was clearly popular with raptors as a marsh harrier popped up from the nearby drain and drifted away from me.
For 30 minutes though I had no sign of the RLB anywhere. I was beginning to wonder if I had imagined it and the harrier had confused me at that distance. Another scan of the fields though and I picked up two large raptors in flight. One was a red kite but the other was a nailed-on RLB!!!
They were both some way off and it was now not only dark but getting a bit misty. You could easily make out all the ID features for the RLB as it was chivvied by the kite.
It was hovering, or at least trying to when the kite allowed it, it had a distinctive white-patch on its tail, a stunning grey-white great and its wings looked much longer and narrower, more like the kite than a buzzard.
It finally gave up and settled down onto a spot where you could see it a bit better.
The two-tone nature showed it to be a juvenile rather than an adult bird. After a short rest it tried its luck hunting again but this time local kestrel decided it was in the wrong place and started to attack it.
This was too much for it and it moved away further down the fen. You could see it still in the distance but it was now over a mile away. As the light and weather was only getting worse I called it a day for this visit and after a very pleasant chat with a local birder moved off to the great city of Peterborough. Target here was at Ferry Meadows where a red-necked grebe has been consorting with the local great-crested variety for a week. This was an easy twitch - pay the car park fee and it was a 2 minute walk to the lakeside where you could see both 5 birders and 6 grebes mooching about in the middle of the lake.
This shows you both birds for comparison, both in Winter plumage. The red-necked is smaller, dumpier. shorter necked and has a yellow not pinkish bill. The cap on its head goes down over its eyes as well. Whilst I was there it stayed in the middle of the lake giving itself a good grooming.
It can come really close to the shore when its feeding but not today. I gave it about 45 minutes but if anything it was drifting further away so I gave it up and headed off. Another good day though for birds, some of the best sightings I've had of rough-legged buzzard and even it the photos aren't going to win any awards it was really good to be out and about.
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