Two Patch Year Ticks.

Monday evening was a real treat in birding terms. I didn't start wandering around my patch until 7.30pm and was still roaming about at 10.30pm.

Within 15min of arriving on the patch I had a real result. My second sighting of a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker this year. I was made up. I didn't attempt getting too close for pictures. It was a little overcast so a high ISO on the camera resulted in a poor grainy picture. One shot, and it was gone.

 

I eventually ended up by a little copse as the light was fading, and could hear the squeaky calls of young branching Tawny's. I spent ages scanning the trees trying to pinpoint one of the three young that were calling from different areas. No such luck. I definitely had one call pinpointed to a definite area of a specific tree, still couldn't locate it. I didn't want to get too close and start pestering them, so I decided to call it an evening and head for home. Just as I was leaving, I heard the call of an adult Tawny, a parent and very close judging by the call. It called again, and I pinpointed it with the binoculars and had some great views as we stared directly at each other.

I got the camera out of its bag, found the Tawny in the viewfinder, took a small step to the left to get a better composition to the picture, and it dropped off the branch it was perched on and silently and swiftly, vanished from view. All before I depressed the shutter. Never mind, I had some very good views.

There were also quite a few Burdett Moths about too, again, light was poor so picture quality suffered. Nice to see though. I will be taking some more evening strolls soon.

 

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