Raptor watching

I was out with Mark and with it being a reasonable weather forecast we decided on a bit of Raptor watching down Troutsdale this morning, dropping in from the Snainton end our first stop at that end of the valley soon produced firstly a Buzzard soaring and then a Goshawk flapping lazily along a ridge, pleased with our early success we dropped further into the valley and down to our usual watchpoint but apart from a brief sighting of a Gos upsetting the Wood Pigeons and a Peregrine dashing through we had quite a wait for anymore action, eventually late morning the Buzzards started getting up in numbers and then at least three more Goshawks appeared, a pair was displaying for quite a while, good scope views but they never came close.  With time marching on we decided to move on and check out nearby Langdale Forest where a wintering Great Grey Shrike had been reported this morning, the forest roads were quite driveable and we managed to get out to the Lun Rigg area which the Shrike has been favouring, we had half a dozen Crossbills over but despite a good search there was no sign of the Shrike. Then the weather turned and it started snowing eventually becoming quite persistent so we admitted defeat and dropped down to Scalby Mills with the intention of photographing the American Wigeon, that was not to be though as the weather was just as bad on the coast and the sea had become very rough, the Wigeon were a fair way out and although we found the American Wigeon it wasn’t easy to stay on as it bobbed around not helped by it spending much of its time asleep. At a bit of a loss of what do next we went up to Holbeck where a couple of the Med Gulls have started to attain their summer finery then decided to call it an early day and took a steady scenic drive back over the Wolds, quite a lot of Hares but nothing of note birdwise.

lovely blue skies during the morning

but a grey afternoon