Dave and I had agreed that
after emptying our moth traps we would go to the Welbeck Watchpoint to hopefully see Honey
Buzzard. When we arrived there were two
other birders already present who indicated that they had seen a Goshawk and
had distant views of a Honey Buzzard.
There were a number of distant Buzzards, which I was struggling to pick
up in the bins, never mind identify but one birder was persistent that one was
a Honey Buzzard. A local birder who
turned up just after Dave and I was certain that they were all just Buzzards,
which I was happy to except as Honey Buzzards at that range would be
unacceptable. Two other local birders
turned up and after some time one announced he had a Honey Buzzard to the
east. It was over some trees close to
the road and was heading out over the valley to the larger area of woodland. The views were pretty good through the scope
as the bird flew across the open valley.
It was a rather dark individual with greyish-brown upperparts and
darkish looking underparts. The long
tail, which was closed, was obviously notably longer then a Buzzard’s and the
wings also appeared longer.
Whilst we were on site there
was a discussion of breeding Montagu’s Harrier at a site in South
Yorkshire. It had been kept quiet but
now that a single juvenile was on the wing news was percolating out. Two of the local birders had been to see the
birds and were quite happy to provide details of the location. After a brief discussion Dave and I decided
to go.
We arrived on site but there
was no sign of the expected observer with a scope and most of the fields were
either harvested or being harvested. We
scanned the fields and marsh behind us but all we saw was a distant Marsh
Harrier and a Buzzard. I had noticed two
other birders further down the track and decided to walk and ask them if they
had either seen the birds or were able to provide any further information.
When I reached them I was
greeted with “Do you know if we are in the right area for the Montagu’s’, not
what I was hoping for. They walked back
along the track with me and I and the guy joined Dave, who hadn’t seen anything
whilst I had been away. I sat down with
Dave and began scanning the fields again when the guy said his wife was
watching a harrier across the reedbed.
Dave and I stood up expecting to see a Marsh Harrier but all I saw was
the bird drop into the reeds. It was
head-on and I didn’t notice the yellowish crown. Dave had picked it up fractionally early and
was pretty sure that it was a female Montagu’s.
He then picked another harrier coming off the reedbed and heading over
the fields, which turned out to be a male Marsh Harrier. We then picked up a typical dark juvenile
Marsh Harrier over the reeds but the possible Montagu’s had not
reappeared. Dave indicated that we
needed to make a move and head off home, when he picked up another harrier over
the reeds that turned out to be the juvenile Montagu’s. It was clearly much light built than the
juvenile Marsh that we had just seen and as it turned it revealed a white
rump. As it came a little closer we were
able to see the rufous underparts, identifying it as the juvenile. We had also seen a Clouded Yellow butterfly
whilst on site and left feeling that the effort had been well worthwhile. It had been an excellent day’s birding with
two not so easy to get raptors added to the year list.
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