short eared owl - Thorpe Marshes

short eared owl - Thorpe Marshes

Wednesday 27 March 2013

Patch visit

A trip to the patch in the sunshine for a change was a rather cold one with the biting wind.i made my way to the Broad. - 
I had  9x teal, 13x Tufted ,11x Pochards & 7x Gadwall.
A rather cute  Litte grebe was my first ever count on the actual broad so was a nice bird to watch. 
On the shingle was 2 x mute swans and a single Stock dove .

3 x Grey herons took to the air as I walked past the marshes along bungalow lane and then I heard some calling Common Snipe. I soon had 11 x snipe together , and at that point a male Marsh Harrier took my eye. This was obviously the reason for the appearance of the Snipe. I watch it hunt over the marsh for near on 10 minutes until it went over the river towards postwick . Beautiful bird and made my day ! 
As I passed the marsh scrape I had 
7x stock doves  and 6x  teal .
Happy birding 
Shaky