Friday 2 September 2011

Grey Start

This morning I set off early for West Hartford and arrived there by 6:30. On my way I had been listening out for the Green Woodpecker GM had on the Northburn estate yesterday morning at a similar time, but no sign this morning.

Yesterday I went to WH in search of the Little Gull GB had found. When I arrived there were no gulls on either of the pools. It was probably the same Little Gull myself and SH had fly over nearly two weeks ago.
As I was leaving LMcD arrived and after watching 4 Buzzards soaring over the fields in the distance I noticed another raptor heading towards us. It headed down the river but as we watched the sun distorted its appearance and we couldn’t pick out any colour.
Its appearance fitted that of an Osprey especially when it hovered over the river but we just didn’t see enough key features to clinch an ID so left it at a probable.

As I arrived at the entrance of West Hartford this morning, a Grey Wagtail flew over calling. Nothing was on the main pool but on the smaller one there were 40 sleeping Mallard and 2 Teal.
I spent the next hour checking all the rows of bushes and scrub behind and around the substation; in total I found 6 Chiffchaff, 1 Willow Warbler, 2 Whitethroat and 1 Goldcrest.

Instead of going back the usual way I went through the fields leading to East Hartford. As I was approaching East Hartford village a Grey Wagtail flew over in the direction of the Horton Burn.
I walked back following the burn and just west of the main road bridge over the burn I ended up flushing 4 Grey wags. They landed on some rocks in the burn a few meters away and were then joined by another. Before today the most I have seen together on the burn was 3.

114 – Grey Wagtail

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