Roger and I had agreed to go
and take a look for the Short-eared Owls at Cossington Meadows this afternoon
but after arriving at his home we spent a few minutes viewing his garden. He regularly gets Blackcaps during the winter
and had recently seen two males and a female, although one male had become
dominant and he was now just seeing a single male. There were three Greenfinches on his feeders
and after just a few minutes the male Blackcap appeared and began feeding under
the feeders. Not a bad start to the
afternoon with a year tick and also plus Counties year tick, Greenfinch.
We went to the sewage works at
Barrow-on-Soar first as Roger had seen a Chiffchaff there early in the
month. However it was pretty quiet with
a small flock of Redwing being the highlight and very little else and we
eventually moved on to Cossington.
When we arrived a single
Short-eared Owl had been seen earlier but had disappeared but on reaching the
far end of the meadows in wasn’t too long before one appeared again. It only flew a short distance before landing
on one of the fence posts where it remained for some time before taking to
flight again. It then provided some nice
views as it quartered the field before settling a little closer on the
posts. It wasn’t long before it was in
flight again and this time it spent even longer over the field before it
disappeared from view. A second bird had
appeared just before the first disappeared but it didn’t show quite as well as
the first and disappeared to the north.
The first bird then reappeared overhead before it also disappeared and
as the light was beginning to fade we called it a day. As we walked back one of the owls was perched
at the top of a quite large tree and remained there as we approached and we
were able to get some nice views before we departed leaving the bird scanning
the area from the top of the tree.
Short-eared Owl
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