Saturday at the caravan hide.

Before I start, you may remember that I posted about the Lesser Grey Shrike from Jennycliffe Plymouth during the week. Tim Worfolk is a well respected professional illustrator who lives locally. He is an extremely knowledgeable professional and someone I admire greatly. In the past he has worked on a publication The Shrikes of the World and his opinions of the bird in Plymouth are well worth reading about. He talks about the age and sex of the bird and it is extremely interesting. Have a look at his photos and words here. http://2birdtheory.blogspot.co.uk

On arrival this morning, the light coloured juvenile Buzzard was next to the caravan and it flew up to the ridge as soon as it sensed my arrival. On inspection there was no evidence that it had taken any bait and it had shown no interest in the woodpigeon and there had been nothing recorded on the trail camera. It was very good to see the bird still showing interest in the area though. Hopefully it will return in the next hour, disturbance on access to the caravan is unavoidable and very unfortunate, however it may condition the Buzzards to associate my presence with a food source? Another early morning visit is necessary to be in position before the bird arrives perhaps. On disturbance on Tuesday, the two buzzards returned very quickly with one staying to feed, I therefore expected the bird to return again. It will certainly be aware that there is a food source here. A Sparrowhawk flew over, the first for the site that I have recorded

About an hour in to the session, as I sat in the caravan, something plonked itself on the roof, I sat with bated breath, I was listening to Mahler on the radio and getting emotional about the beauty of the music, the 4th movement is just a wonderful piece, but I had to take the headphones off to concentrate. Whatever was on the roof moved around a little and I could hear scratching and clicking as it moved around….. a Buzzard or a squirrel but I was thinking Buzzard. Then I started to hear sibilant noises, could it be a Jay. But whatever, something was about to show up. I sat still and waited, then it all went quiet and whatever had been there seemed to have departed. How frustrating. After a while a squirrel was feeding on peanuts spilt on the ground, probably the visitor on the roof of the caravan, it sounded much larger.

I spent the afternoon listening to and being depressed by the football club that i support and then returned to check the trail camera to see if there had been any "action" this afternoon. It was great to see that a Woodpigeon carcass – the remains of the peregrine kill from the other day – had been removed from right in front of the camera……how exciting was that. There was bound to be some photos and footage. The saved files showed that a Buzzard had come for a look at just before 4 and then returned 40 minutes later to take the carcass. I think I got the very best out of the trail camera and the image below is what it is, an image taken on an £80 camera. But it's never the less interesting for that.