Sunday 19 July 2015

Red Footed Falcon

As I saw on Staffordshire Bird Guides, that the Red Footed Falcon was still Present at Chatterley Whitfield Colliery and as it is only a stones throw away from me, it seemed remiss of me not to go along and have a look, I got there at 11am on Saturday morning to find around 30 to 40 people present and the bird was in a small tree close to the access road, but was not coming out soon, as always there were the usual comments that "you should have been here earlier", as apparantly the bird was showing well for a good half hour in the near left hand corner of the paddock, my companion could not see the draw of standing looking at an empty field, although it was a lovely sunny morning, but did find an elderly gentleman jumping out of his car and trotting up the road, shouting "is anyone on it""!! very ammusing indeed, so I decided that even after a very damp night and waking up to showers, that I would give it another go on my own this morning and arrived at 8am to find only four people there, two having travelled from Sheffield and one from Wales, who very kindly put me onto the bird in one of the trees along the left hand back corner, it was still showery at this point but just as the rain stopped and the sun started to push through, the bird came out of the tree onto the overhead cables, dropped onto the floor and then flew into the same tree just to the right of me, that it was in on Saturday morning, all this happened within a few moments and although the sun was not in the right place, I managed to get my first record shots. Also present was the Black Redstart and a Green Woodpecker, the first being very bedraggled from the rain, and I was not going to beat my shots I got of one in Norfolk a couple of years ago and the Green Woodpecker was too far away. Also a gentleman told me that Little Owl and Barn Owl have also been spotted in this area, so I think it will be a regular area for me to check in future!! As quick as the clouds had parted, the sky became black and thunderous again, so if it stays any longer I will pop along later in the day.