spent most of the day looking for a wing-tagged Marsh Harrier but the time was also productive with a nice obliging juvenile Greenshank between the periods of heavy rain and bursts of sun accompanied by increasingly strong westerly winds;
only found this pair late in the season and failed to track down the nest but good to see at least one juvenile fledged -- it was hawking dragons over my head for about 10 minutes before the dark clouds enveloped the area
a local farmer pointlessly drove all across these fields just because he could and flushed this mother and fawn; she jumped a high fence and left the fawn cut off behind the wire fence it could not jump -- at a distance even with the 1.4x on the 500 you can get them both in focus but when they get close its a quick decision on which one to focus on -- bambi won
failed to catch any of the 1800 ducks it put up or any of the waders -- once the ducks landed they just refused to get up and play in spite of frequent buzzing by the young falcon --
my favourite bird by far -- a hopelessly under-recorded breeding bird in eastern England -- fledged juveniles are often found on arable fields where they even catch a few insects while hopping about but it is their prowess in taking migrant hawkers and common darters in flight that never ceases to amaze me considering that just 4 weeks previously they were sat in a nest and had never even made a flight -- only three weeks and they will have gone again for another year
