Monday, March 07, 2011

Sunday...


A morning spent up on the moors. As we arrived at the spot, top, we could hear a distinctive loud kew-kew-kew call from a short way into the trees. Goshawk. There appeared to be a pair calling and interacting with each other and surely it was only a matter of time before a multitude of calling and displaying Buzzards attracted the male up into the air. After an hour or so we needed to get off, so it looked like our birds had taken stage fright.

We had retraced our steps for only 10 minutes or so when they appeared from behind some tall pines ( in the right of the photo) and began soaring. There was a brief spell of  'butterfly' flapping, then both moved back over the trees and out of sight. Superb birds with a palpable air of menace as they called and flew around. Everything else went quiet and vanished!

Maybe there will be better views in weeks to come. Not much else was seen during our wait other than 4 Crossbills, a Great spotted Woodpecker and the 7+ Buzzards..

On the way back I found this cast Red Deer antler in the heather. Red Deer are very scarce in Northumberland so this was lucky indeed. Its now back home and is going up on the shed... 

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That antler would make a novelty feeder hanger, Stewart :-)

Stewart said...

Thats done it now. I'll have to get the local Robin or Blue Tit roped in for a Blog shot! Watch this space at the weekend :)