Last Thursday I decided to brave the weather and take a fishing trip to Brenkley Pond, partly as I still had some usuable maggots from several weeks ago and was happy enough to catch a few smaller fish on waggler in view of the ongoing near-freezing temperatures at night. That was exactly what I got - 6 small perch and 6 small roach, some of which rivalled the ones at Milkhope for minuteness.
Even on fine tackle bites were infrequent and finicky and had a knack of arriving at inconvenient moments when I was pouring a coffee or fiddling with gear, so I should probably have caught more. At least the presence of perch is likely to weed out some of the smaller fish over time.
Covid travel restrictions having been relaxed I took the opportunity to meet up with Alex and Vicki at a certain Scottish moorland last Friday in search of birds of prey. Maximum temperature forecast 9C, actual temperature on arrival 3C, enlivened by strongish wind and a squally shower.
Within half an hour of arrival, we spotted what we thought was a barn owl hunting and soon there were two or three on the go. Then hen harriers started to appear, both male and female, overall about a dozen sightings though some may have been the same birds returning. Some of the males were displaying by zigzagging up and down on the horizon.
Not really dressed for the cold, I was more interested in fiddling with a flask of tea and a pork pie than the camera, so left it to Vicki to provide the photos.
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It transpired on closer inspection that the photos were of short-eared owls, though I suppose it's just about possible that both were present. At one point two owls were together and there was a clear size difference and all sightings were at some distance. However the habitat certainly makes short-eared owl a good deal more likely. We had also hoped for peregrine falcon or merlin but neither showed up, not even on returning later in the day. Still, having only ever seen one male hen harrier before, it was great to see several on the same day.
Meanwhile, on a brief walk up a nearby valley, we encountered numerous meadow pipits, the first two swallows I have seen this year, a few pied and and one grey wagtail. I had a notion there might have been a white wagtail but it didn't hang about, neither did one larger pipit on the stream which I suppose was a rock pipit. On the return walk, there were a number of willow warblers around and one reed bunting as well as a pair of stonechats back on the moor.
I suspect this Spring will turn out to have been a disaster for butterflies and there have been remarkably few on the wing these last ten days. Today a white landed that was either a female orange tip or a green-veined white. After it departed a male orange tip appeared. Otherwise there has been nothing apart from a single speckled wood at the tennis club on Sunday.
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