No worries @Ergates. Pity is that being limited to exercise up to 1km from home for the next 5 weeks and that beach is 20km away we won't be seeing any more till December 2 at the earliest.
On the other hand, we do have buzzards, herons, great egrets and cattle egrets here and assorted raptors I can't identify as I mostly see them perched on wires above field boundaries and looking inscrutable. Plenty of marshland nearby and down to the coast so we see marsh harriers too.
Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
"The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
For 9 miles in any direction we are surrounded by open farmland and small copses of trees, with a large amount of raptors from Kestrel to Buzzard, with a few owls thrown in, so we have been expecting the Red Kites to move this way.
We always have a male and female Hen Harrier here in the winter, they arrive in October and leave in the spring, lovely to see them gliding low over the fields, I don't know if they mate for life or if it is a different pair each year.
I looked up from weeding one day in the summer and there was a red kite riding the thermals above our boggy wilderness. It turned into the sun so I got a perfect view of its underside as well as the forked tail. A first for here, though I did see one locally once,while driving into town.
We get buzzards, love to hear them, sparrowhawk and kestrels. One kestrel is huge, much bigger than the books say, but still definitely a kestrel. There are owls too and lately I've seen the barn owl more often than I've heard the tawnys, though for years we didn't know If we had one.
But we also see a couple of other large hawks, too big to be a hobby or a merlin, but have so far failed to ID them. They move fast and our sightings have mostly been silhouettes against the sky or fields. We think we can rule out harriers on behavioural grounds, but any of the remaining possibilities would be a real delight
@Buttercupdays - is there any chance your kestrel is a merlin? I took photos on a hillwalk a few years ago, as there were a few winging around on the way and one settled on a stile, letting me quickly get some photos before they disappeared again. I just assumed it was a kestrel, only to discover it was a young merlin, when another poster IDd it.
It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
Only if merlins hover too! We see it regularly and watch it hunting. If our cat is anything to go by there are loads of voles round here, so we think it's just a large specimen. Bit like my daughter - at nearly 6ft she towers over me!
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On the other hand, we do have buzzards, herons, great egrets and cattle egrets here and assorted raptors I can't identify as I mostly see them perched on wires above field boundaries and looking inscrutable. Plenty of marshland nearby and down to the coast so we see marsh harriers too.
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
I took photos on a hillwalk a few years ago, as there were a few winging around on the way and one settled on a stile, letting me quickly get some photos before they disappeared again. I just assumed it was a kestrel, only to discover it was a young merlin, when another poster IDd it.
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...