Saturday 3 March 2018

Pinning them down!

I had just got home when the phone rang, it was Wdigbirder, excited!" Megga's on the moor" he said breathlessly "What?" ..."Pintails"... OK on my way... Pintails might not be everyone's idea of a Mega but  they are for Goodwick Moor!

We met up and he pointed them out on a a grassy little island in a  shallow flooded area, but they were largely obscured by the undergrowth


We gently approached, but spooked them and they flew off over and beyond the moor.

There were at least fifty, maybe a hundred golden plover (some coming into breeding plumage), spread around, lots of meadow pipits, snipe, winter thrushes etc 
The sad corpse of a Golden Plover was obvious with its plucked breast feathers scattered around, These weakened birds, easy prey for raptors. We thought probably a sparrow hawk.



A little further on we were checking out a funny looking pipit when a Sparrowhawk pounced  on it, carrying it off in a trice! Well at least something was feeding well! 
We decided to walk back to the car, i feeling a bit miffed about missing a decent shot of the Pintail's  when Wdig noticed them coming in off the sea towards us...
..

They swung past, i fired off a couple of shots...


I am not going to lie, pretty pleased with that one, and the one below!


 So in the end we got our mega's and we were both happy bunnies...