Raptorland

Monday 10th November 2014
Spent an amazing late afternoon in the Tame valley. I started at Kingsbury Water park. There was a male Stonechat at Cliff pool and assorted Ducks. I carried on up the canal to the field with the Konig horses where a Water Rail was calling. A Kingfisher flushed from the swollen river at Fishers Mill but it was just before Fisher's Mill that the fun began. First a Merlin flashed over the Dosthill bund and then as I approached the first screen I saw a Marsh Harrier quartering the islands in the centre of the Jubilee wetlands. The Marsh harrier, a female, was being mobbed persistently by two crows and eventually went to ground on an island. There was no further sight by the time I left as dusk approached so it may well have roosted. Just before I left though there was further 'excitment' when a flock of 300 Lapwings accompanied by a single Golden plover were flushed by a Peregrine. Quite an eventful afternoon!