Another Osprey

Sometimes you just get lucky.

So many of the blue sky days that we've enjoyed I have spent them in the garden looking up. Luckily for me this is also where Jess and Harry want to be when it's sunny.  Yes I have accumulated a pretty decent haul of raptors during lockdown by doing this, but many of these days also returned a nil result.  

Today I spent 98% of the time I was at home inside, but when I walked into the conservatory for literally the first time of the day, at about 12:30, I glanced out the windows to see all the gulls in the air.  I shot inside for my bins and immediately picked up an Osprey gliding slowing north east into the wind.  Another dash in for my camera and I managed to grab a few shots before it appeared to drop down into the valley just north of Black Hole Marsh.  Quite a late date for a spring bird so presumably a non-breeder.

It's certainly been a good spring for Ospreys on the Axe

My sixth of the spring - but I have appreciated every single one of them

When something like this happens, it always makes me wonder just how often we aren't in the right place at the right time.  As far as I'm aware no one else saw this Osprey, so if I had gone into the conservatory just one minute later, a bird with a five foot wing span that sends every gull in town into a frenzied panic, would have flown over Seaton and the Axe Estuary unnoticed.   When you start to think about small birds, the mind truly boggles at how much we must miss.  We know when were are in the right place at the right time - but can we even comprehend how often we are in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Having spent far reduced time at home recently, I don't have anything to add for my lockdown house list.  The only news is negative really, as the Grasshopper Warbler hasn't been reeling for about four nights now,  This ties in with the day the fields either side of its hedge were cut and sprayed, so basically it's either been spooked or killed. I hope it's the former, but either way I miss him.

I also haven't seen a Red Kite for a few days, which isn't normally something I'd mention, but as West Bexington counted 112 fly west yesterday it is noteworthy.  With so much north in the wind it looks like they have been passing to the north of Seaton, taking the same route the satellite-tagged White-tailed Eagle took last month.

Before I go I just need to update yesterday's lepidoptera post.  The whole paragraph I wrote about seeing plenty of Orange-tips during every one of our daily lockdown walks, but not being presented with the opportunity to photograph a single one...  Guess what posed for me about an hour after I posted that blog post, during our daily family walk...

A stunning insect; male Orange-tip

Stay safe everyone... or is it now stay alert?