Polecat -- the real deal?

a long story but sitting on the car boot peeling an orange, the benefits of eating fruit, when this came loping down the road towards me -- by the time I got the camera out it had gone! it reappeared with a baby rabbit and ran off down the road -- 20 minutes later it ran past 6m away and where was the camera? in the car!  persistence paid off in the end -- from the limited gen on the internet this looks like a real Polecat rather than a Polecat Ferret but I am no expert --the black from the eyes extends to the nose, legs and feet black, no unusual marks in the back -- North Lincs -- Canon 1D4 and Canon 300 2.8 II

Black Tern and Black-headed Gulls

from a couple of nights ago on the patch --

Montagu's Harrier patch tick

one of the most obviously outstanding holes in my local patch list was amply filled this afternoon by this beautiful male Montagu's Harrier (thanks Tom) -- a good job it flew past pretty close as it was 24C and hazy as hazy

Marsh Warbler at Clee

always through thick vegetation but fantastic song -- if I could work out how to upload some song I would

Cuckoo

our only local bird and I have not seen a female as yet; this male was feeding on earth worms in a grass field -- is the lack of caterpillars restricting local Cuckoos? the ones I was watching on the coast yesterday were finding abundant caterpillars on the sea buckthorn and there were several Cuckoos present

sad day for harriers

having been busy for weeks it seems like I managed a trip to one of my Marsh Harrier spots this morning; from soon after sunrise it was clear that something was not right; no males hunting just one bird dropping bits of nest material into random places in the reedbed and a new female who seemed to be just wandering around; no sign of the other pair or the original female; after 3 hours I checked another site close by -  again no sign of any harriers then a chilling sight of grey and rufous feathers in  hawthorn; a dead male from a breeding pair and no sign of the female -- what is going on? does it come down to the usual local grumblings of too many Marsh Harriers eating all my birds? -- at another site locally another male has disappeared of late and a female Peregrine has been picked up dead; it becomes almost a dread task checking other nest areas but at one area I know there is very little harrier activity compared to recent years --- or is it just the spring weather we have had?? the dead bird is going off for analysis