Saturday 11 April 2015

Ring Ouzel & Osprey, Bedfordshire

The day started at Blows Down in Bedfordshire. The weather forecast for today was for light rain, followed by heavy rain, followed by strong winds and sunshine.
Parking up at the end of Half Moon lane, we headed off into the paddock area in search of any lingering Ring Ouzels or Redstarts from yesterday.
The paddock was very quiet, so we decided to head along the track and check the slopes and eventually the chalk pits at the far end.
The slopes were quiet but soon after reaching the pits the familiar sound of a Ring Ouzel was heard. It took a little longer to actually locate the female. Soon enough it perched up at the top of a nearby tree. 
A dog walker came through and flushed it, and it took off over the hill, circled round and landed in a tree right at the top of the pits.
A quick scan of the tree revealed two Ring Ouzels, a male and a female. No sooner had we locked on to them with the scope and another dog walker came through and the two birds dropped down back into the bottom of the pits.

An unexpected bird today was an Osprey that decided to drop in at Eversholt Lake. Luckily we were not far from the site, and after a quick drive around looking for the lake's location we were parked up and heading down to the lake.
A small group of birders were already present and the bird could be seen through the trees at the far side of the lake well before reaching them.
Some had witnessed the bird catching two fish since it dropped in, and the birds crop did look quite full. Having watched it for some time, it suddenly flew from the tree circled the lake and landed in another tree at the far end of the lake.
Once we re-located it, I grabbed a couple of shots with my phone, hand held to my scope.





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