Thursday 1 April 2010

You hope for one thing and receive......

Prestwick Carr is one of those places where I always feel that just anything could turn up.
However I did not expect this mornings news of White-Tailed Eagle was not an April Fool joke.
I visited at early afternoon and evening - no WTE.
Having experienced close sightings of WTE on the Isle of Mull over the last two Spring holidays I would have loved to see one locally just to see its size measured against well known backgrounds because I know they are huge!
However time was available and as it turned out, as they say, I was 'last man standing' on the bumpy road last night and was supremely rewarded.
Last year, at this time, I could not find an owl anywhere, including the Carr.
But recently have been over indulged and tonight I had three Barn Owl in the bins at one time.
I was over the moon. Still am!
My bet, based upon tonight's sightings, is that there are four Barn Owl in this area at the moment.
Not only that but as I raised the bins just above the three, there were two Buzzard flying low over.
Magic, just magic!
Photos are rubbish but I don't care.

I was surprised at the difference between one pair of Barn Owl.
You will have to look closely at the pic below but while one of them was significantly 'white' the other on the right of the pic was decidedly rufous-brown. Any opinions on this?

During the visit, countless, (well just because I didn't count them) Yellow Hammer and Pied Wagtail as well as three Roe Deer in the field west of the wood and a couple of Shelduck in a patch of ditch overflow in the same field. Earlier three or four Buzzards soared over the wooded area.
Field Fare, Mistle Thrush, Redwing, Lapwing, Redshank, Greylag, Pied Wagtail and many Gulls were also present in the flooded fields.
Just noticed the big bird in the tree beyond the Deer, - but its not a WTE

2 comments:

PCF said...

Glad you got the owls. I saw one from the car on the way home but three is a great record.
Generally males are cleaner with a pure white breast whilst females show more greying and a lightly spotted breast but there are significant plumage variations between individuals so sexing this way is not recommended.

Citybirding said...

Thanks for the info Peter