A busy couple of days on the reserve. Firstly on Tuesday we had a visit from a team from our Orkney reserves, down on the mainland for a few days for the regional meeting, and to have a look at our Konik ponies.Some of the Orkney reserves need grazing, and this was a good chance for the Orkney team to see what a difference our ponies are making to the habitat and to have a chat about how we're looking after them out on the marsh.
As you can see from the picture below, the ponies are looking great, they're still in good condition and are growing an incredibly thick wooly winter coat ready for the rest of the winter.
Today was a case of slipping back into old habits. With Vicky and Emma both busy off reserve, we'd invited Dominic back for the day to help us out with a visiting University Group this afternoon. Typically as soon as he got in we were off to the plantation via a quick seawatch. While we didn't manage to get that elusive 199th species we got a good selection of birds in the plantation including two Chiffchaffs, Robin, Dunnock, Treecreeper and Goldcrest as well as Red-Throated and Great Northern Diver at sea.
The highlight of the morning though was a large, dark bird with a white rump flying just above the waves. I pointed it out to Dominic, as I couldn't quite work out what it was. The conversation went something like- "Really odd large bird with white rump, if it was over land I'd say it was a hen harrier".
"Yes, that's a hen harrier...".
It didn't seem to be exhausted, and was in full sight of land but was just steadily following the coastline south, only stopping to be mobbed by a confused Herring Gull. We know that raptors do come over from the continent but to see one just drifiting apparently quite happily, this close to the waves was very unusual indeed. Just goes to show you can't always use the habitat to help you out with an ID!