Yesterday was a beautiful day with a light easterly wind, high cloud and lots of blue! Perfect for raptor watching and the crew watched the skies from 11am-3.30pm and managed to find an impressive 14 Common Buzzards and five juvenile Marsh Harriers on their way south as well as numerous sightings of Hobby, Kestrel, Peregrine and Sparrowhawk. Visitors along the river wall part of the reserve were amazed to see these big birds of prey over their local reserve! They also found a flock of 200 House Martins incredibly high heading south with a single very late Swift for company.
On a the down side a Buzzard was found dead on the roadside near the entrance this morning where it had been hit by a car, presumeably after coming down for some other road kill.
The Vagrants scan the skies...
Howard Vaughan, Information Officer