My normal activity on a
Tuesday is to visit Rutland Water but with a Crag Martin at Chesterfield over
the last two days I had delayed my start in the hope it would reappear this
morning. Ken had drive to David’s and we
had agreed that we would go if it was present this morning, however the first
news was negative as it had not been seen.
I gave it another thirty minutes in the hope that it would still turn up
but with still no further news by eight forty-five I decided to head off to
Rutland Water. I went via David’s as Ken
wanted to follow me to Rutland Water. As
we drove through Tur Langton David called but the call dropped out straight
away and so I reviewed the messages on my Bird Guides app and established it was
still there.
A quick turnaround soon saw us
back at David’s and after picking Roger up we headed off to Chesterfield. We arrived in Chesterfield at about 10:30 and
after parking walked the short distance to the crooked spire church where it
was being seen. As we arrived in a car
park opposite the church another birder informed us that he had been watching
it just a few seconds ago but that it had flown off. Despite this being its normal pattern it was
still an anxious wait before it returned.
When it did appear I was surprised to see how quick it flew around the
church and it was quite difficult to watch as it kept disappearing around the
church and several other buildings. Most
of the time the views were against the sky and few details could be observed,
but it was clearly quite a stocky bird with pointed wings. Its flight was mainly on flat wings twisting
and turning at great speed but without too many noticeable wing-beats. It was greyish-brown above and dirty white below,
which appeared to darken towards the rear.
Two field marks the dark under-wing coverts and white windows in the
tail were seen occasionally but its rapid flight made then difficult most of
the time. The pattern of flying around
the steeple for a period and then disappearing was repeated on several
occasions and several times it looked as though it was going to land on the
steeple but always seemed to change its mind and continued flying. On one occasion after it had disappeared, it
became apparent that some birders were watching it on the steeple and on moving
our position we were able to get views of it perched on a ledge near one of the
clock faces.
It remained perched for quite
some time before eventually taking to flight again as the clock struck. On the ledge the upperparts were greyish-brown
with noticeably darker flight feathers and it appeared a little darker around
the eye. The tertials and some other
coverts were finely edged whitish, which perhaps suggested that it was an
immature. We returned to the car park to
view it in flight and I was able to watch it as it flew off some distance to
the north east at which time we decided to leave and head for home.
Crag Martin
A Sparrowhawk and a Grey
Wagtail were also observed whilst we were in the car park.
No comments:
Post a Comment