A day in the forest

As the weather wasn’t as bad as I was expecting this morning I decided to chance another trip up to Wykeham to try and photograph the Turtle Doves, I saw a couple of Buzzards along the A64 on the way then as I got there and turned down the Nursery road I flushed a bird off the perimeter fence, it was a Cuckoo and it just moved up the fence a bit, this was a bit of a bonus I thought I'd missed the chance of photographing these for another year, unfortunately it wouldn't let me get right alongside it and I ended up having to stop short and photograph it half hanging out of the car door, it eventually dropped into the field and fed there for a while before being flushed by some walkers, I staked the Nursery area out for the next hour or more but again there was no sign of any Turtle Doves, however just as I was about to leave I saw a large Raptor drifting behind some trees and as it came out the other side it revealed itself to be a male Honey Buzzard, another bonus. I moved to another area of the forest where a large clearing held a good few Tree Pipits, I spent a bit of time photographing them and having a general wander around, there was also a Spotted Flycatcher in the area, I retreated back to the car and had lunch when the only shower of the day came over, not bad when I expected it to be raining all day. I then headed over to the valley we discovered last year and spent a bit of time there, a common Buzzard showed well, and Sparrowhawk and Goshawk put in brief appearances but there was no Honey's today, I returned via Troutsdale making several stops along the way then as I got to the Snainton end there were a few birds in the road near some farm buildings as I got closer a Wood Pigeon flew off then I realised the smaller birds were a couple Turtle Doves unfortunately I’d got too close and off they went, oh well you can’t win em all. Stopped off at West Lilling on the way home to listen for Quail, one duly obliged but it only sang a couple of times and was fairly distant, a Little Owl was more obliging though and there were also a good number of Yellow Wags and Corn Buntings around.

Gos diving back into the trees

Little Owl at West Lilling