Feeding Wild Owls

Barn Owl waiting for food

I used to know a one eyed Barn Owl in Kent. If I positioned myself on the birds blind side it would fly really close to me, before when it turned its head and good eye in my direction it saw me, at which point I could see the bird panic as it  banked sharply and rapidly flew away. This individual owl stands out in my memory not because it only had one eye, but because it came so close, a rare thing for wild Barn Owls.

Scroll forwards a couple of decades and I'm sitting in a curry house in Holt, north Norfolk with my friend David  who is talking about a friend of his who feeds Barn and Tawny Owls in his garden "flocks of them, up to eight or nine in the air at once."

I'm intrigued and a little sceptical at first, but I trust my friends bird knowledge and know slightly the person he is talking about. As the curry and lager goes down I ask if it would be possible to see this spectacle for myself and bring my young family along. My friend has a think for a moment and then says that he'll make a call and see what he can arrange.

Which is how a few weeks later I find myself in a large garden come scrubby meadow with my friend and his daughter, our host, my wife and our two young boys. It is freezing and the arrival of the bad weather soon to be known as the "Beast from the East" is just a couple of days away.

Earlier sitting in our hosts lounge we'd already seen video footage of the Barn Owls in their nest site in his roof and now we have come outside into the cold night air with a bag of dead day old chicks, several of which have now been placed on carefully positioned dead tree branches.

Above us in sharp silhouette against the sky and stars a barn owl fly's silently round the field, looking down at us, eyes set in its large round head held aloft by long white wings. Looking up I get a sense of what it must be like to be a vole in this same meadow when one of these top predators is hunting.

But this evening the owls are not hunting but scavenging, our host supplementary feeds "his" birds helping them to fledge two broods last summer. In this unique setting and in accepting this free source of food the birds have also become habituated to people. Nonetheless this gathering of seven people is the most that they have experienced and our host is cautious about the effect that this might have on the owls behaviour.

There are now three owl's flying around above us in a ghostly holding pattern. The kids for the moment forget the cold and excitedly point out the circling Barn Owls.

Barn Owl getting a free meal

I focus my camera on a dead day old chick that has been placed on a branch less than three metres away from where we are standing. I pop up my cheap DSLR 's inbuilt flash, I'm ready, just as well because one of the tamer owls decides that it is safe to come in for food. It descends quickly, wings held high and legs stretched forwards talons ready to grasp a dead chick. Although we all know we should be quiet an excited chatter accompanies the birds rapid descent and departure. I don't think that any of us visitors had expected that, a wild owl coming in quite so close.

Over the course of the next 15 to 20 minutes (I didn't check the time) two more Barn owls come in to grab a free meal and another shyer pair watch from high in a tree waiting for us to move on before they come down for their food.

Our host decides that we should turn around and move a few metres to where we can view another dead branch that he has planted in the grass of his meadow garden. Here on the edge of some scrubby trees he hopes we will see the Tawny Owl that he feeds.

Now there used to be a one eyed wildlife photographer who lost an eye when he was returning to a hide on a Tawny Owl nest late one night. His name was Eric Hosking and he had his accident way back in May 1937 before the advent of modern camera gear. I'd heard his story many times and had never quite understood how it could have happened. But on this cold Norfolk evening it became a lot clearer to me how such an accident might have occurred.

Our hosts Tawny Owl was usually later to put in an appearance than the Barn Owls and it wasn't on its normal perch waiting to be fed when we had arrived earlier in the evening. Maybe there were too many of us. Now gathered together we stood even closer to the bait than we had for the Barn Owls and as for them there were some basic lights rigged to illuminate the scene. Somewhere in the darkness we could hear a Tawny Owl hooting, a more familiar and less other worldly sound than the screeching of the Barn Owls.

Tawny Owl with supplementary food

Then in the time it took to utter a warning "here it comes" the resident Tawny Owl shot towards us in a fast low level flight out of the dark and straight to the dead chick, talons outstretched wings up to brake. One flash of the camera and it was gone as suddenly and as quietly as it had arrived.

Now having seen the speed and power of a bird I normally only see dozing in a tree during its day time roost, I could better understand how Eric Hosking could have lost his eye in a speedy attack by a Tawny Owl defending its nest.

The cold is starting to rise through our feet and permeate our bones, one child tired, excited and cold goes back to the car to warm up. Another declares that they need a trip to the loo. So reluctantly we decide to call it a night and turn to leave. Just as our bodies are at 45 degrees to the perch with a dead chick on it a Tawny Owl bursts from cover and repeats the rapid flight in and out we'd seen earlier.

Maybe not the flocks of owls I'd been promised over a curry, but a truly remarkable experience nonetheless. We thank our host and climb into the car to drive home with his admonition ringing in our ears to drive carefully and not hit any of his owls.

Snowdrops

This is forecast to be the coldest week of the winter so far. This morning I had to clear a thin layer of ice from my car windscreen and drove through flurries of snow on my way across Norfolk. Yet by lunchtime the sky had cleared and it was a bright but cold day.

In the Rosary Cemetery I paused on my lunchtime walk to take some photographs of the Snowdrops these has naturalised here and there are great clumps of them, splashes of white petals in lieu of the patches of snow which never settled earlier in the day.

I always love it when there is a sense of a season turning, being elbowed out of the way by its impatient successor and today's show of Snowdrops tells that Spring is starting its inexorable push to succeed winter.

Snowdrops, Rosary Cemetery, Norwich

Front

Its easy to work out the points of a compass at Titchwell the coastline runs east to west and the West Bank Path runs from North to South, so if you are standing on the beach facing the sea you are looking due North. This morning the view from the top of the Dunes was of a choppy North Sea with a perishing cold wind cutting through exposed flesh and the waves making it hard to pick out of sea duck. 

I made my way to the top of the highest dune and had a quick scan of the beach but could just see the to be expected mix of Oystercatchers, Sanderling and Bar Tailed Godwit's, whilst the sea seemed a little devoid of birds. 

View east from Titchwell towards Brancaster Beach and Scolt Head

Looking East towards Scolt Head Island and the Royal West Norfolk Golf Club at Brancaster I could see a weather front coming in. Above me the sky was still blue with sunshine, to my east it had turned black, dark clouds edged with silver inexorably moving in my direction.

My fellow birders eyes were focused on a narrow field of view in front of them, the beach for shorebirds and sea for wildfowl and all seemed oblivious of the approaching bad weather. I decided to turn  around and head back down the West Bank path as I did so the cloud caught up with me and gone was the blue sky of an hour ago, Island Hide was illuminated by a spotlight of sunshine breaking through the clouds and was fronted by a rim of golden reeds. On a small island half a dozen Red Crested Pochard sat hunkered down heads tucked under wings to keep warm.

Red Crested Pochard, Titchwell

Beyond the hide a pair of Marsh Harriers buffeted in the wind did a half hearted little bit of courtship over the reedbed but buffeted by the wind soon went their separate ways.

Island Hide, Titchwell

A return walk over the same route in just under an hour but with two very different views.

Light

December is a month of short dark days, weeks that compete for gloominess and a month that seems to shudder to a halt with the indoor excesses of Christmas. Yet just a week or two later as the days  start to draw out in the new year there is a also a subtle change to the quality of the light. Now on sunny days it has a vibrancy that was missing in December and comes with a gentle hint of the Spring to come. 

Ken Hill Woods last Friday, I quite liked the light

Last Friday was just such a day of promise, a clear night left a heavy morning frost that coated the cars windscreen with a thin layer of ice. In the local woods at lunchtime a bumblebee sat in a stupor on the ground woken to early from its winter sleep, the vibrant yellow flowers of a Gorse bush were out a little early for pollinators like the unfortunate bee. As I enjoyed my walk snatches of Great Tit and Nuthatch song cut through the trees, whilst a large mixed flock of Long Tailed Tits, Goldcrests and Coal Tits reminded me that this was still January.

But it was something about the light on a woodland ride and how it brought out the colours of the bare trees that made me stop in my tracks and pull out my little compact camera. To the left of the ride sunlight streamed through a gap in the trees, creating a natural spotlight at 45 degrees. This light hit the bronze leaf litter on the forest floor and reflected back up onto the white bark of the silver birches that edged the ride. Behind all this a belt of conifers suffused with the same winter light gave a soft green background to the scene.

This viewpoint is one that I have passed many times before, it is on one of my favourite walks through these woods, a walk I do probably at least once a week throughout the year. It is pleasant but it doesn't normally having me pausing and reaching for my camera. But today what for me briefly lifted the scene was the light helping me see a different view and bringing this bend in a path in the woods to life.

As I stood and tried to capture an image that would go someway to capture the spirit of the scene in front of me, I was acutely aware of the transient nature of what I was enjoying. All it would take for the magic to fade would be a change in the position of the sun as the afternoon wore on, or a light breeze pushing in some cloud and with it turning off the magical soft winter light.

I carefully composed my image and pressed the shutter button, then after taking one last look at the scene in front of me continued my walk around the wood and eventually back to my office and a full afternoons work at my computer.

A storm lit Peregrine

Yesterday was a cold day with grey sky's and a northerly wind blowing in frequent icy showers. Also a family day with kids swimming lessons and meals to prepare and supervise. But just after 4.30pm I felt a need to experience a bit of wildness and so I seized the opportunity offered by a gap in the weather for a walk under Hunstanton cliffs. 

When I got down onto the beach the first thing that struck me was the large numbers of slightly flighty Oystercatcher's feeding among the boulders on the tide line, these were noticeably focused on eating bivalves and I saw several with mussels and winkles in their beaks. 

Oystercatcher's Hunstanton Beach

As I watched the Oystercatcher's, Fulmar's like stiff winged crosses, glided effortlessly over the sea and across the face of the cliffs they will soon be nesting on.

Looking north along Hunstanton Cliffs and into the approaching storm

A curtain of rain back lit by the setting sun hung across the Lincolnshire shoreline of The Wash. To my north a slate grey sky gave an electric light to the horizon. And it was cold enough for me to be wearing gloves and swap my baseball cap for a warmer fleece hat.

An insouciant dog walker passed with his hounds which flushed the feeding waders and a small party of Brent Geese, creating for a moment or two a wheeling wind blown confusion of wings and bird calls. Looking up the grey sky to my north seemed closer. 

As the shorebirds settled I stood on a low boulder and picked out the unmistakable cigar shape of a Peregrine coming up from the south and over the sea heading towards me.  In the storm light as it powered its way into the wind effortlessly ahead of the ineffectually mobbing Herring Gulls its body glistened like Mercury.  

Then with the sun below the horizon and the storm upon me came the darkness and accompanying cold sharp rain.

The waters of The Wash and the sky above me were by now similar shades of dark battleship grey, the northerly wind on its own would have been bitterly cold but now this was amplified by the driving ice cold rain that was hitting me in the face. I'd had and savoured my wild moment and now I turned and strode with the wind at my back for home. 

The storm over me, Hunstanton Beach

Winter sunshine on Titchwell and Roydon

Thursday 18th February, had a great day in the field.

If I have a problem with Titchwell Marsh it is that I know it so well, I have been visiting this site on the north Norfolk coast ever since I moved to Norfolk in the late 90's and sometimes it is difficult to see the place with fresh eyes, I know where the Woodcock will be, where to look for a Water Rail when to expect the Avocet flock to start building in late winter and so on. So visiting with my young family is a great chance to slow down and try and see the place through the eyes of two small boys one aged six and the other four.

Water Rail at Titchwell, Panasonic Lumix TZ30

Last Thursday was a great opportunity to do just this. The boys, my wife and I arrived mid morning and walked from the car park to the beach and back. It was a beautiful, crisp blue sky day, perfect for walking and any birds would be a bonus. As we hit the start of the West Bank path I noticed a couple of birders staring intently into an overgrown ditch a pretty good sign that a Water Rail was showing and sure enough there was one feeding out in the open and both boys were able to see this only six feet away and without binoculars. As one old boy said to them you're really lucky I had to wait 40 years to see one [not sure if he meant 40 years of age or 40 years of birding].

As the path leaves the wet woodland it skirts the edge of the reed bed and a series of small pools and ditches. Just ahead of the family I picked up a Kingfisher flying into a sallow and was able to set the scope up on it. Amazingly it sat there for several minutes allowing both kids to get good views of it. The Kingfisher even hovered over the pool for us.

Kingfisher at Titchwell, hand held Panasonic Lumix TZ30 through a Kowa 883

After a visit to the beach we walked back to the car stopping for no1 son to admirea very close Black Tailed Godwit and then back in the wood by the car park I stopped with no2 son who was transfixed by one of the very tame and approachable Robins.

Later that afternoon having dropped the family off at home I popped down to Roydon Common for the Harrier roost. The car park was as full as I have ever seen it and about 40 folk stood on the path that runs along the southern edge of the depression that makes up the middle of the Common. Whilst we waited for the Harriers to come into roost I searched for whatever else was on show, this was hard work but I did manage a couple of common Buzzards in a dead tree, a distant hunting Barn Owl and half a dozen Roe Deer.

Then as the heat left the afternoon as the sun dropped behind the hill to our rear the first ring tailed Hen Harrier drifted in across the common. A little later the bird we'd all been waiting for appeared a Pallid Harrier although always distant it gave great scope views as it flew over the browns and yellows of the common and the backdrop of fringing bare branched silver birches, and would perch on a fence post for minutes at a time. At one stage it spent a minute or two chasing and being chased first by a Hen Harrier and then by a Carrion Crow and at one point put up a Jack Snipe from a wet patch.

Pallid Harrier hand held Panasonic Lumix TZ30 through a Kowa TZ30

As the light started to ease away more Hen Harriers drifted int and I saw at least three perhaps four ringtails and there was still time for more birds to come into roost when I left with cold hands and feet.

Roydon Common at Twilight, Panasonic Lumix TZ30

Rough Legs in the Gloom

The rain eased off mid afternoon and I managed to get out in the car for a quick drive to do an errand in Brancaster Staithe via a couple of birding sites. From Hunstanton I took the back road past Courtyard Farm and whilst I didn't find any Little Owls a large mixed flock of Corn Buntings and Yellowhammers was good value.

Crap Rough Legged Buzzard picture

I turned north up Chalkpit Lane and stopped before the summit of the hill. I quickly got distance views of a Rough Legged Buzzard and after a few minutes I was watching two birds "tumble" along the hedgerow in the distance, one bird flying up into a bare tree to be followed shortly afterwards by the second birds, I couldn't work out his this was a pair of birds bonding, fighting over territory or a bit of pre-roost socialising. Eventually they went their separate ways and I managed some very grainy " record shots" which I have heavily manipulated on the computer to get anything even vaguely usable.

An another

From here I swung down into Brancaster Staithe Harbour and had a pleasant ten minutes with the long staying Red Necked Grebe which was joined by a trio of Red Breasted Mergansers. As the light faded and the ISO setting on my camera got cranked ever higher I tore myself away and headed for my errand in Brancaster and then home.

Red necked Grebe

Red Breasted Mergansers

Twite in Thornham Harbour

Been feeling a bit pre-occupied of late and so it was great to be able to get out for an hour and a half this afternoon and spend sometime on my own at Thornham Harbour. I chose to visit Thornham because I figured it would be less buy than many other spots on the coast and that I'd hopefully jam into either the wintering flock of Twite or perhaps a Hen Harrier.

Almost as soon as I got out of the car I heard the distinctive sound of a small flock of Twite flying around in a bouncing flock low over the saltmarsh. They quickly settled and I was able to get good scope views. Although a little flighty I was with patience able to get some great scope views and these showed a number of birds wearing colour rings, I didn't have time today to note these down.

My digi-scoping kit is a little archaic a quarter century plus Nikon ED Spotting Scope and Panasonic Lumix TZ30 camera that I set to macro zoom. In the low winter light this afternoon I really struggled to get any usable shots, by upping the ISO I could freeze the action but at the cost of some very grainy images. I got one shot that was slightly better than the rest and I have copied this below.

A couple  stopped and asked what the flock of small brown birds I was looking at were and I explained they were Twite a species they'd never heard of, but a look through the scope had them drawing comparison with Buntings and Finches that they did know.

I realised that I had lost track of time and I wasn't even sure if I had my phone with me or if I did which pocket it was in. My visit had worked I'd got into the zone of birding and digiscoping and for an hour or so not thought about the things that had been weighing on my mind. Just what the doctor might have ordered.

Thornham Harbour and its surrounding saltings looked great, a real classic north Norfolk winter scene with large number of loafing gulls on the exposed beach intermingled with Brent Geese, the browns of the the saltings varying from almost bronze ands gold to dark muddy brown and the old coal barn and fishing boats showing the influence of man on this landscape. In the distance towards Titchwell I could see a Barn Owl hunting on raised cream wings over the swaying washed out heads of last summers reeds. Time to go home.

Red Necked Grebe, Brancaster Staithe

The strong winds of the last few days were starting to ease a little this morning and I decided to combine a errand in Brancaster with a visit to the harbour in Brancaster Staithe to look for the  Red Necked Grebe that had been reported here. Joined by no1 son [age 6] I drove down as close to the edge of the water as I dared and practically the first bird I saw was the Grebe fishing in the channel to the west of the harbour. I wasn't able to stay long and the bird never came close enough for great photographic opportunities so this heavily cropped record shot is the best I managed in the ten to fifteen minutes we spent with the bird.

Red Necked Grebe, Brancaster Staithe

Brief encounter with a Kingfisher

The weather has turned and the last hint of Autumn is behind us and this is now winter. Yesterday we had bitter cold gusting north westerly winds blowing over the bins in people front gardens in Hunstanton and providing birders on the east coast with a few Little Auks to enjoy.  By this morning the wind had dropped and there was a blue sky over the town, in my case I could see it from the windows of the Oasis leisure centre where I was attending no2 sons 4th birthday party.

Kingfisher, Holme Marsh

By this afternoon the weather had closed in again and grabbing the chance for an hours fresh air I headed to Holme Marsh where I figured I'd have the place to myself and the shelter of the hides if I needed it.

Cropped Kingfisher image, Holme Marsh

It was good to see the reed and Typha had been cleared from in front of the first hide and from here I saw a Cettis warbler in brief partial glimpses as it worked its way through the base of some reeds. A Barn Owl put in a brief appearance and I then decided to look from the second Hide, here the best birds were a male and a female Marsh Harrier hunting the NWT reserve. Then the high pitched call of a Kingfisher had me looking hard out of the hide window as a bird landed on a Typha head in front of the hide, its blue back and orangey underside doing their best to brighten a dull afternoon. I grabbed my compact camera [a Panasonic Lumix TZ30] and managed a few shots of the perched bird, not bad results for something the size of cigarette packet. The Kingfisher departed and in its place came rain, lots of it hitting and pock marking the surface of the pool. Time to head home.

Goldfinch Roost in Hunstanton

Roosting Goldfinches, Hunstanton

 A metallic chattering call and an undulating gently bouncing flight gave the flock of Goldfinches away as they flew over my head and around Hunstantons' Sensory Garden. In the flat weak light of a December afternoon they looked anything but golden more the same uniform grey of the bare branches of the trees they were dropping into and then out of in this pre-roost gathering.

I tried to make a rough count of how many birds were present and estimated about 50 only for a similar sized flock to fly over a different corner of the Sensory Garden. I paused from my walk for a few minutes to enjoy these birds and tried to grab a few shots with my compact camera. 

Roosting Goldfinches, Hunstanton

As I left I noticed more, presumably different birds in small flocks heading in the direction of the Sensory Garden, so my guess is that there could have been anywhere from 100 to 150+ Goldfinches gathering here on this dull winters afternoon.

Squeezing in Squirrels, Gulls, BOPs & Pipits

Grey Squirrel, Rosary Cemetery, Norwich

It's been a pleasantly varied last seven days with some nice opportunities to do a bit of wildlife watching mixed into my working and personal week. I managed a couple of lunchtime walks arou8nd the Rosary Cemetery in Norwich earlier in the week and one of these coincided with some lovely light and a lot of Grey Squirrel activity as they foraged for food in the leaf litter.

Yellow Legged  and Lesser Black Backed Gulls, Titchwell Marsh, Norfolk

A two day work meeting close to home in NW Norfolk included some time out and about and I and my colleagues enjoyed a great couple of hours at Titchwell. I was particularly pleased at picking out this distant Yellow Legged Gull and a Merlin flying offshore. Other highlight were Red Necked Grebe, Marsh and Hen Harrier, Sparrowhawk, Cetti's Warbler, 35+ Little Egrets and a Chinese Water Deer on the Saltmarsh. I enjoyed watching this Black Headed Gull feeding on the Saltwater Pool.

Black Headed Gull, Titchwell, Norfolk

Little Egret, Burnham Overy Staithe, Norfolk

Today I took no2 son for a quick drive along the coast road to get him to sleep and I took advantage of this to nip into Burnham Overy Staithe and Brancaster Staithe Harbour's. Nice to see Marsh Harrier at both sites and to watch this Little Egret feeding at Burnham Overy Staithe.

Rock Pipit, Burnham Overy Staithe, Norfolk

Rock Pipit, Burnham Overy Staithe, Norfolk

It was good to pick up a couple of Rock Pipits at Overy Staithe.

All pictures taken with a digital compact Panasonic Lumix TZ30 so I can either apologise for the fuzzy cropped nature of some shots or invite you to marvel at what you can achieve with a camera that isn't much bigger than a fag packet, either way I didn't have my SLR with me at all this week so having  a compact meant at least I got some images.

Hunstanton Shags & Fulmars

Yesterday was an unexpectedly lovely winter blue sky day and even more unexpectedly I managed an hour and a half away from family duties to take a walk under the cliffs at the end of our road.

Not sure what I'd been expecting to see and I was pleasantly surprised by the number of Fulmars hanging around the cliffs either sitting on the flat calm waters of The Wash, flying over head or sat on the cliffs themselves. They were incredibly vocal and their calls, which I always feel sound a bit like a Geiger counter filled the air.

Fulmars, Hunstanton Cliffs

Apart from the Fulmars I'm inclined to say that it was the usual suspects with Turnstones, Redshanks and Bar Tailed Godwits feeding on the foreshore and Herring, Common and Black Headed Gulls present on reasonable numbers. Off shore were Great Crested Grebe and a couple of fly by Red Breasted Mergansers. Noticeable by their absence were any Brent Geese, but perhaps the beach was just a little too busy for them today.

I also managed to see four or five Shags, a two or three feeding just offshore and a couple more roosting on the cliffs. I had been told about the big Shag roost on the cliffs earlier in the winter and knew that this had peaked at over 100 birds but family commitments had prevented me going to look for them and to be honest I'd forgotten about the fact that they were still there. So it was a special treat to finally catch up with what has been a record breaking assemblage of these birds in Norfolk, albeit only a few of the many birds that had been present and to take a few pictures.

Shag, Hunstanton Cliffs

Drive by birds

2012 was a long hard year at home with all the fun and hard work that a new baby brings, and some difficult times with sick family members. Mix all of that up with a full on job that just seemed to get busier and busier as the year progressed and its little wonder that I've neglected this blog for over a year.

Male Pintail at RSPB Titchwell Marsh today.

But it’s a new year, number two son is now over a year old and hopefully personally and professionally I'll have more time in 2013 (and with luck it won't rain so much this year).

So where to start? I didn't get out much in January, the highlight probably being 90 minutes at Titchwell with a work colleague showing an old friend from Mongolia the reserve, the sea and some birds which included a lovely male Peregrine spooking the waders and wildfowl on the saltmarsh. Nice scope views too on this visit of a Water Pipit on one of the Fresh Marsh islands.

Other January bird highlights include the 'herds' of Bewick’s Swans feeding in black track side fields as my train headed south across the Fens towards Cambridge and then London. Always amazes me that I don’t see other passengers looking out the window and ‘noticing’ the wild swans, Roe Deer and other wildlife.

Whilst in London walking across Green Park to my meeting, it was lovely to hear and then see high in the canopy of a London Plane tree a Ring Necked Parakeet, a naturalised alien with some brassy charisma.

February has started cold. Yesterday a mix of rain, clouds and sun breaks at times provided some electric light with which to take photos of Curlew and Teal in Brancaster Staithe Harbour whilst no2 son had his afternoon nap in the back of the car.

Curlew at Brancaster Staithe yesterday

Today a crawl round Choseley drying barns, Burnham Overy Staithe and Brancaster Staithe harbours whilst no2 slept in the back, yielded nice views of half a dozen Bramblings, c 20 Yellowhammer and 25+ Chaffinches at the drying barns. Three Dabchicks bobbing in the waves in Burnham Overy Staithe harbour, whilst a Marsh Harrier drifted through. At Branacster Staithe harbour there was no repeat of yesterdays Water Rail but good numbers of Wigeon, Teal, Dunlin, Turnstone, Bar Tailed Godwit etc.



Chaffinch & Bramblings at Choseley drying barns today

 This afternoon I managed a short brisk walk in the cold wind at Titchwell Marsh. Nothing exceptional here but a dozen Avocets, c25 Black Tailed Godwits, and a Marsh Harrier were nice. Less usual sighting were a Weasel on the path at Parrinder Hide and three Bramblings and a Coal Tit on the feeders.