I get told off by the Wife on a regular basis for buying sandwiches from the shops while at work,  but if I hadn’t gone to the shop today I wouldn’t have seen the following ! Divine intervention me thinks !

As soon as i got out of the van I heard a very distinct bugling from above , now with all the sightings and reports of Whoopers this last week,  my first thought was ” ooh Whoopers at last ” , imagine my surprise then with the sight of 3 Common Cranes circling above me ! after several profanities and strange looks from the natives, I grabbed my phone whilst still shaking with excitement in order to call Dave Roberts, as by this time they were circling within about 400m of his house ! Unfortunately Dave was on the Humber banks !!

The 3 birds drifted slowly East for a few more minutes before being lost to view over the hills, but they were sufficiently low enough to I guess be looking to land, a quick call to Spadge who was shopping, meant that we were both soon up on top of the hill and scanning the fields, but to no avail.

A  couple of Yellowhammers , several Long Tailed Tits and a single Little Owl perched in the sunshine on a barn door at his usual site a little further up the lane were the only birds of note.

Spadge later informed me that 3 Cranes were over RSPB Langford Lowfields at 10.40 am ,the Grantham birds were at 11.15am, so almost certainly the same birds.

Trev

The featured image credit goes to Steve Nesbitt