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
Brilliant, coming to a field near us soon! I hope so anyway