General (County) update - 23rd October 2010

• Up at dawn (aggggain) to pop down to a local wetland nature reserve with Mr.T, to see what was about -maybe to include the bittern(s) also.


• Well.... no bittern but we were treated to a sparrowhawk killing some kind of passerine in front of us.


• I'm lucky enough to have seen a good number of successful ambushes by sparrowhawks over my years - but I've never seen a hawk drown its prey before, even though I know it happens.


• This morning I watched this sparrowhawk (male - unlike the bigger female in the linked video) catch a small bird and drown it in the lake shallows for a good ten minutes - before making off with his breakfast - stunning to see.


• Other birds of note at the lake - shovelers, teal and very bossy little grebes.


• Please click the photo above to see the lake a little larger -click again to see it full size and right at the back of the lake, in the shallows, sitting at the bottom of the 7th post from the left - is the hawk, sitting on its drowning prey. Apologies for the poor quality of the photo, but it was very gloomy (and indeed wet) at the time this morning and the hawk must have been 400 yards away...