Spent a fantastic few hours over our Lodmoor reserve yesterday afternoon. Birds of prey were showing off well with Buzzards and Sparrowhawks both soaring above the reserve. Hobby was also diving over the reeds catching insects that were emerging from the water. The best of bunch was the Marsh Harrier. It was busy hunting over the moor when it suddenly dived down onto something. A few seconds later I emerged carrying something quite large. I was with our Volunteer Allan at the time who took a few pictures and revealed the prey item to be a stoat! I guess that stoat don’t taste very nice as the bird wasn’t particularly keen in eating it, or it gave in to the crows which were giving it a bit of grief. Either way the crows didn’t even eat it after the harrier dropped it!
There was plenty of other things to see besides birds of prey, reed and sedge warbler were in good supply as were swifts which were feeding over the reedbed. We also had a report of the first fledgling Bearded tits on the Lodmoor a few days ago, so hopefully the first of many.