The unexpected dry spell allowed us the chance to do some tidying up in the garden. It was sunny and there’s always something to see overhead, so I’m certainly not about to complain. The gulls are a good alarm system when I’m gardening. I don’t actually have to watch the sky, just keep an ear open for sudden silences (always worth checking out), or a near exponential increase in squawking. Both say: Raptor Alert!
Here’s the first visitor of the day, a rather fine looking buzzard that flew over late morning.
I missed a sparrowhawk soon after that one, but they tend to come back and I was able to get this photo a little later in the day.
As well as gulls and birds of prey, it can be worth watching the corvids. Jackdaws chatter overhead; and the crows have their own noisy way of making their presence known, especially if they’re not happy. I spotted a small group crows in fairly frantic flight. It appeared that they were chasing an unwelcome crow out of their territory. This is a short sequence of what happened when one of the local crows caught up with the interloper.
The shots were taken from some distance and are heavily cropped, but it was interesting to see them in mid-air combat. The birds separate in the final shot and I watched as the lead bird was chased away over the valley. The several other crows in attendance (but out of shot) circled back to nearby trees.
The final sequence is of a buzzard. It wasn’t being mobbed as such, but carefully escorted away from the area by a small squadron of herring gulls. They mainly kept their distance, but one would occasionally dart closer to remind the buzzard of their presence. The buzzard itself is interesting as it has lost a number of primary feathers. Its flight seemed unaffected, and the feathers will re-grow.
Camera note: all photos taken with the Canon 7D and EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens.
dW
2 Mar 2014Absolutely stunning shots, Words! Not a second-rate one in the lot!
Darko
2 Mar 2014Haha, it is always funny to see smaller birds (except for gulls) chasing much bigger and more dangerous raptor. We can often see crows and gulls chasing bald eagles and even though eagles pretend and try to ignore them, they are always first to give up 😛
Fighting crows look fantastic!
Words
2 Mar 2014dW, thanks! It’s so nice to have had some blue skies for a change. back to the grey today. And now rain and more flood alerts!
Words
2 Mar 2014Darko, the corvids are experts at chasing off larger birds. Oddest mobbing I recall was either a swallow or house martin mobbing a sparrowhawk. Now that does seem incredibly risky behaviour.