• Mon. May 20th, 2024

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Corse – a 3-harrier day

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Upstream, notable was a very large flock (>1000) lapwing, and around 600 golden plover. 8 little egrets in the field, one grey heron in the fen, a buzzard on a fence post.

I met Mark Saunders struggling through the mud on the way to the hide, Caroline Pickett was there already. She’d had a close encounter with the pallid harrier flying over the hide, hopefully a photo to follow, Mark and I got there just in time to see it reappear from the east and fly across the Corse to hunt on the north side. In a crazy few minutes a male sparrowhawk buzzed it, and it interacted with another ringtail, presumably our hen harrier, just as the female marsh harrier appeared. Looking at my photos later I seem to have caught all three harriers in the same two shots, although which ringtail is which at this point I have no idea. The 4th bird is a shadow, I think. Things went a bit quiet after that, though there was a large stock dove flock on the Kilpaison side. A little egret pottered about in front of the hide, a few ducks (mallard, teal, shoveler) in the stretch of water just to the R of the hide which you now can’t see, on account of the new fencing. Parties of snipe flying about. I left around 11.