North Linc's.......

Sun going down at Far-Ings NNR.

Another oppertunity to get out for a full day today as Trace was at work,saw some pretty good sightings and one piece of amazing behaviour.I started off at Worlaby Top for the 'Tundra' Beans first thing,with the 21 birds being present on the same harvested sugar beet field as yesterday,but being a little further away today,but in better light,you can't win.Amazingly while watching the flock another 5 birds flew in from the east and proceeded to briefly touch down,before getting up again and doing a couple of circuits,before heading west.How many more of this usually rare species are going to turn up?.As the weather deteriorated i decided to go and look for geese on the upper humber and hopefully bump into the Beans i had just seen at Worlaby and as i neared Mere crossroads at Winterton/Winteringham it was apparent there was a good sized flock of geese here and i was hopefull.After much scanning i couldn't find any Bean's,but my searching had revealed at least 20 European White-front's in amongst the hordes of Pink's.It was nice to watch them at leisure,with several juv birds in amongst the flock,giving superb views of their subtle i.d. features a real joy to watch.After watching these beauties,the weather had improved and i stopped off at Read's Island/South Ferriby to see what was present,the next piece of behaviour was amazing!.I was scanning the water to the west when i saw a Peregrine chasing a Wood Pigeon,with the Wood Pig twisting and turning all over the place to try and evade the Perg,but the Peregrine eventually caught up and smacked into the Wood Pigeon,scattering feathers everywhere.The Wood Pigeon then fell into the Humber and was watched swimming about on the water,the Peregrine did a couple of flybys but eventually left the pigeon to it's fate.About twenty minutes later the same Peregrine appeared over the island and scattered birds in all directions,swooping down and seconds later coming up with a Teal it had managed to catch.What happened next was unbelievable,a female Marsh Harrier had spotted the Perg catch it's prey and decided it wanted it for it's lunch and began to chase the Peregrine,the Perg obviously wasn't going to give it up and she headed off.I could actually see the bird panting with effort as she got closer and suddenly lost her grip, with amazingly,the Female Teal flying down to the water and swimming away!!.This was one of the most amazing pieces of behaviour and action i have seen from this species and i fealt sorry for the poor Perg after all that effort and no meal.Other sightings here included 3 Marsh Harrier in total,masses of Golden Plover and Lapwing and a couple of Brown Hare on the fields.A brief visit to the patch after meeting up with Dave,revealed very few birds,with the best being 2 Barn Owl flushed from their roost site by a shooting party and 2 juv. Marsh Harrier over the pasture field.With all this shooting,we made our way to Barton Pits and managed to find a Chiffie on Far-Ings with the day ending with a pair of Peregrines over the Pursuit Pit as the sun went down.A superb day,with some hard work put in,but it was well worth it.