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An interesting afternoon yesterday. After making our first visit to the Red Hill LWT reserve and seeing a few pristine Marbled White butterflies, we moved on to Ruckland. On arrival the favourire raptor watchpoint was deserted but we decided to take a look anyway. Within minutes the WTE had appeared from the back of the ponds and flew to the wooded area to the right, but was then out of view. We walked part way along the public footpath and the eagle flew out again and landed in an adjacent wheat field - just its head could be seen. It then returned to the wood, but again out of sight. Walking a little further we then had another view as the eagle perched for a few minutes on a low branch before flying back to the area behind the ponds.
The 'footpath' is actually a wide farm track that is being re-surfaced with stone so there has been a lot of activity there recently with men, noisy tractors and other machinery, but somewhat surprisingly, the WTE seems unaffected by this and stays around. Incidentally, in flight the bird still looks very tatty and seems to have a long way to go before being in prime feather condition
Whilst retracing our steps to the car, Linda suddenly paused by the roadside and looked into a large storm drain. Swimming around in the bottom and cheeping loudly was a very small Mallard duckiling, no more than a couple of days old. I dropped off the kit that I was carrying and went to see what I could do. Hauling open the drain cover I reached down and grabbed the bird, at the same time I heard a splash and realised that my spectacles were now in the bottom of the sump, having slipped from my top pocket!
To cut a long story short, I managed to retrieve my specs. but only just as they were almost out of reach.
We agreed to take the duckling back with us, and when almost home, decided to call at a friends house in North Kelsey Moor, the friend has a large collection of water and other fowl and might look after the little bird.
We were in luck, not only did we find a home for the duckling but Shirley, our friend, mentioned that she had got a pair of Spotted Flycatchers in the garden but didn't know where they were nesting. Within about two minutes I had seen both parents taking food into a pear tree against a wall and quickly found the nest. This was a real bonus because, as mentioned previously, I did not think any Spotted Flycatchers were nesting in our area this year! Shirley also mentioned she had picked up a juvenile Tawny Owl from her lawn a couple of weeks earlier so that is two more species that can be added to the TA00 square for the BTO breeding bird Atlas.
Roy
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