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I witnessed an unusual and slightly amusing event, along our local Beck side yesterday.
I heard a whoosh and a commotion behind, which was a female sparrow hawk catching her morning breakfast, which I later realised, was in the form of a Tree Sparrow, which she grounded just behind me- nothing exceptional about that, but she landed right next to a Cock Woodpigeon who was busy feeding.
At first I thought she had eyes bigger than her belly and was dropping on the Woody, not so however, the Woody set about the Sparrow Hawk and was knocking nine bells out of it, with its wings, ( we get rival Cocks boxing each other with their wings fighting over territory in our garden)
After about a minute or thereabouts of being pounded, the Sparrow hawk managed to fly off with the Tree sparrow still in its talons.
I’ve seen our local Mistle thrushes, beat up the Sparrow hawks and also relish in knocking them out of the sky, but never a Wood pigeon.
 
Just back from a small trip to Barra(if that is possible) Highlights .2 golden eagles having a tiff.Sea eagles following the ferry. Merlin stooping on a pippit.and best of all ,the call of the Corncrake.

Jim
 
I fished <1/2 mile stretch of stream this morning and had 22 Great Blue Herons fly over me in the same direction. I don't know if it was a few couples and a single flying in circles waiting for me to leave their pool or some upstream migration is afoot. They are not rare here, but it is an unusual number of sighting for 4 hrs. In between were an osprey, mature bald eagle and a red tail hawk.

Also caught a brief glimpse of a little finch that will have me sourcing the bird books soon. Small, dark brown or blackish with orange red wing bars and a similar colour upper breast. Tail was also lighter coloured with black tips.
 
Had a trip to nearby Bempton Cliffs yesterday managed to see the Black browed Albatross , Only one in the northern hemisphere it seems it got blown north of the equator a few years ago , it has turned up at the gannet colony the last couple of years looking for a mate...
Took some picking out amongst the 1000s of gannets ,.

PS the gannets were outnumbered by the twitchers...

O M W
 
Out on the river a few days ago I inadvertently disturbed a mallard and her ducklings and they took to the water. Nothing unusual with that except there was a ruddy great Canada goose with them, very much a part of the group. Not seen that before.
B
 
With the extreme heat & now the forest fires, western Washington is now home to many birds I have not seen before . Orioles, bluebirds & magpies that normal are only seen on the eastern side of the Cascade mountains. I need to get my bird book out & identify some of the other birds soon.
 
A pair of Hen Harriers when up on Thurso in June along with more Curlews than you could shake a stick at. Lots of Skylarks dancing above the Gorse. Helped make our fishless week enjoyable.
 
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