A Bird's Eye View

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After a busy few weeks, it was good to get outside at the wonderful RSPB Ham Wall in the Somerset Levels. The day was unseasonably warm, but the wind was distinctly chilly, especially in the Avalon hide, which seems to have been designed to be cold and blustery! Spring was definitely in the air, with a flock of 20+ House Martin and 10+ Sand Martin going over our heads at Viewing Platform 1. Chiffchaffs were calling pretty much all the way from the car park to the Viewing Platform, where there were also all of the common duck species: Wigeon (still here from Winter I suppose), Teal (ditto), Mallard, Tufted Duck and Shoveler, with a few Gadwall and Pochard also there. Coots and Moorhens are easily overlooked, but seem to love making a cacophony of noise in their many scraps. The Avalon hide, in all its blustery glory, was hugely productive. In the space of around 30 seconds, a Bittern made a short flight right in front of the hide, two Marsh Harriers flushed the ducks off the water i

Hello all, This week saw some great birds in the garden, with Long-tailed Tits, Chaffinches and the usual suspects in high numbers too. There was a more special visitor too, though... A fantastic male Sparrowhawk flew across the garden, landed on a piece of decking before coming back to perch in the tree. That branch, however, is less brilliant!  Once again, there have been Short-eared owls at Uphill, with three being seen throughout the week. They are large birds, with a wingspan of around a metre, which makes them Britain's largest common owl species. They favour areas of coastal scrub and are diurnal, but show best shortly before dusk. There are certainly better pictures elsewhere on the internet, but below are some of my efforts, one of which was digiscoped from about 100m!                       This bottom one clearly isn't a short eared owl; it's Ed and me making an appearance on Winterwatch after they got in touch with us to enquire about the resu