Friday 18 March 2011

Accipiter Action

To most birders the sight of a Goshawk circling over some woodland is a very welcome sight, and indeed it was for me yesterday when I had nice views of a male circling over some local coniferous forest. It soon dawned on me however, that the woodland isn’t particularly larch and with it being purely coniferous, prey item might not be as abundant as somewhere like the forest of dean where squirrels are everywhere. In the same woodland there are nesting Long-eared Owl, a pair of kestrels and in the past I’ve had Merlin breeding there. It will be very interesting to see how the breeding populations fair with a new pair of Goshawk in residences.




Sadly I didn’t take these pictures yesterday, they are from when I was working at Symonds Yat for the RSPB where we used to see Gos pretty much everyday. It was an amazing 6 months; we completely forgot about the famous Peregrines and just watched Goshawks chasing anything that moved!

Thought I’d stick a couple of other pics I’ve managed over the last 2 days.


This male Crossbill was enjoying the buds of this tree.



Skylarks have been a major feature over the last week, they are singing everywhere!



and finally Raven, these are very common in the south Wales valleys, a nature reserve about 2 miles south of where I am currently typing hold a large flock of non breeders. In the past there has been nearly 40 birds there!

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