Psilos Bird Journal
Saturday February 9th 2008
     
"Life birds " page 2
 
So engrossed was I with the Sanderling that I forgot one little thing. NEVER take your eye off the rising tide! The tide works very nicely to your advantage, pushing the birds ever closer but leave it too long and you end up very wet. I became so fixed on a small group of birds that I did not see the water pushing around me until the tide surged over my legs. I do not know who got the biggest fright me or the birds? They were so spooked by my squawk of horror that they flew off never to return!
     


Now it was almost lunchtime, the tide was high and the beach was deserted. Time to go try pastures new. We had been told about Short eared owls hunting on an Industrial estate close by and it was time to go and investigate. I always know owls as being quite elusive creatures so I really had no idea what to expect. What we found was very unexpected indeed!
 
Our first sightings of these owls were very distant indeed. At first we were reluctant to get nearer but then we watched people walking their dogs very close to them and the owls just sat there and took no notice. We approached one owl very close and got some lovely clear views. Very quickly we had four birds hunting all around us.

The birds are only here for the winter months and the locals are so used to the being there they go unnoticed. The birds fly around the houses as if they were no more commonplace than magpies and crows. A most bizarre sight. Round and round the fields they fly constantly diving down and hitting the ground with a thud as they hunt for mice and voles. Never actually saw them catch anything but they must have a pretty successful strike rate.
 
 
In the end we stayed until the sun started to go down and the owls were still putting on an impressive show. The owls came fairly close but would have liked them to come closer. We need to return with a hide then we might have more success. A very good day though as both Snow bunting and Short eared owls were life birds for me. Certainly a day to remember!