Thursday 13 August 2009

Hare today, gone tomorrow?

Although I've been a member of Sandwich Bay Bird Observatory (SBBO) ever since we moved to St Margaret's I had never made the walk to Backsand Scrape. I'd always had the excuse of the long walk and a dodgy knee. Now the new one has settled down I decided that it should earn its keep and take me down there tonight.

It is quite a long walk from where you park, and as I'd made it an evening walk the light wasn't good when the clouds came across. Luckily they came and went so that dusk was quite late. On the way I watched a Hare, in the distance running across one of the recently cropped fields.

The scrape itself has one difference to the current state of the Restharrow Scrape, it does have lots of birds., even if the back ground is more like Tees-side the sea-side.

Of course the commonest waders were Green Sandpipers, they could be heard in the ditches all the way along the rive and there were quite a few on the scrape.

I'd been told that there was a small group of Avocets around and they were feeding when I arrived.

The Tu Tu Tu calls of Greenshanks were constantly ringing through the air, but they seemed to tuck themselves out of sight a lot of the time. Common Sandpipers were very busy and there were also a couple of Snipe.


Just before I left I moved across to Geoff's hide. The Avocets and a few Lapwings were lining up, and seemed to be preening in readiness for roosting, so I took the hint and wandered back to the car in the gathering gloom.

4 comments:

Daniel Chérouvrier said...

Always so nice to get back to your fine blog !

Warren Baker said...

It was a superb dusk last night. Glad your knees holding up!

Adam said...

Another great shot Tony - Hare leaping!

Adam

Tony Morris said...

Thank you Deslilas, always good to hear from you.
Glad you had fun on your evening walk Warren, look out for the Wagtail roost, they can be good. I hope to get in a position for a closer picture of the Hare, I think they are fabulous animals.