Thursday, February 10, 2011

A routine day of counting geese! 8th February, 2011.

Yesterday was but a memory as this day dawned bright and with obvious potential! And so it proved to be initially with conditions that deteriorated later! Journeying into Bowmore just after dawn, a male Merlin put on an absolutely tremendous display of chasing some hapless passerine above the coast at Octofad. The high speed twists and turns, soaring arcs and all out flat "chases" were pretty impressive and brought me to a temporary halt after a couple of dodgy moves in the car that were somewhat less well choreographed!!

The count itself produced no surprises, but a single Skylark feeding within an ill-drained area way up on the eastern side of the Rinns at Craigfad was the first I'd seen this year. They'd obviously moved out in large numbers with the bad weather and are now filtering back. Their appearance at this time of year can also be somewhat of a "yo-yo" event, in that they can be encountered on the slightly higher ground in singles or small numbers, but then vacate such areas completely to gather together again on much lower ground if the weather deteriorates.

No comments: