Monday 28 February 2022

White-tailed Eagle without doubt (Local bird sightings 1st to 25th February)

White-tailed Eagle (Antony Page)


Goosander
Cormorant
Little Egret
Goosanders at Arrow Valley Lake


The pits remain very quiet currently and a vast reducion of visits makes it more unlikely any birds will be found. However ! On a lunchtime visit, I picked up a very large raptor flying away from the pits heading towards Broom & Bidford. It kept going higher and higher, I throught White-tailed Eagle and it certainly fitted all the ID feature from the distance. I took a couple of images but there were just black dots. Was this one of the wandering re-introduced White-tailed Eagles from the Isle of White?

Last Wednesday, I was about to leave for work when I got a message from Anthony Page from local nature group "I've just seen your Eagle". He had gone fishing in Harvington, close to the pits, when he saw this huge raptor fly over. Thankfully he had his camera and was able to fire off some great shots for evidence. Despite a lot of searches there was no futher sign, however the tracking device informed us it was a three year old bird that then headed towards Penkridge/Stafford before ending up in Yorkshire Dales.

The February WeBS count was undertaken in thick fog. 5 Little Grebe, 8 Cormorant, 1 Grey Heron, 21 Mute Swan, 360 Greylag, 130 Canada geese, 0 Shelduck, 6 Gadwall, 110 Mallard, 25 Shoveler, 4 Pochard all drakes, 40 Tufted Duck,  M0 Moorhen, 70 Coot, no sign of Oycs, 1 Snipe, 50 Stock Dove, 30 Skylark, 20 Meadow Pipit, 1 Grey Wagtail, 2 Cetti’s Warbler.

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