It has been a long time since getting out and about due to house moving, at the moment I am staying with my parents whilst we wait for the move to Norfolk to proceed. Just before we left Wrestlingworth I noticed a pale raptor pass overhead, a quick run for the bins' and I was watching a pale morph buzzard with textbook underwing markings. It wasn't long before the resident buzzards chased it out of their patch. A lovely marked bird to see and end the birding at the old house.
The "Locals" didn't take too kindly to this pale morph intruding on their patch.
Now staying in Hertfordshire until we move, I once again resumed looking to the skies, from the courtyard there are good number of raptors passing over and lo andbehold another pale type buzzard but nowhere near as white as the previous.
The Sparrowhawk makes regular sorties over the houses, the corvids took a dislike to it on this day. After a week here we started to see our first swifts of the year, absolutely great to see these back in our skies, and after a few days of good warm weather the sky is now teeming with them, and a close encounter with some nesting birds in a older house nearly had one flying into Sarah's head! As they came in to gain access to the eaves on the house they literally swooped at head height before disappearing just feet from view...awesome.
A lovely bonus here is the daily fly-by's from the Red Kites. At times they would skim the rooftops and look down upon us, always when I didn't have a camera to hand! I now keep the camera close to hand waiting for the perfect skies and closeness. My time here has also enabled me to get a couple of pieces of artwork completed so if you fancy, take a trip across to my art blog and have a look, the link is situated on the righthand side of the page.