5th March - Farlington Marshes, Hampshire

 From Warblington it was a short drive back to Farlington.  This time we parked in the middle car park and then walked to the sea wall and around to the lake.  There was a window in the weather, while at Warblington the clouds had cleared and a patch of blue sky was above us which eventually brought some sunshine raising the temperature.

The tide was still high, but there were signs that it was falling.  The Lake and reed bed looked completely different in the sunshine compared with the overcast conditions first thing this morning.

We were heading for Point Field, this time with a little more confidence we would be able to see the Short-eared Owls.  The light too, was so much better.  The path leads past the lake and then turns to the left, as we did so I noticed a Kingfisher perched on a strand of Bramble coming from the bank and out over the ditch.

We carefully walked around the path so that the light was behind us and that we could see the Kingfisher with a background of bramble and grass, a little better for the exposure.

Keeping low I was able to get alongside the Kingfisher and also able to sit down so that I was almost at eye level.

Lightning fast and technicoloured, seeing a kingfisher always feels special. This bird though was quite happy to sit still, and appeared not to be concerned by the number of observers that had now assembled.

Smaller than a starling, the kingfisher is a fearsome predator, readily tackling prey larger and heavier than itself. It will perch patiently, on the look-out for any tell-tale fish movements in the water below. When it spots a fish, the kingfisher makes a split-second assessment of its depth and precise location and then dives, bill-first, into the water. With eyes closed and beak half-open, the kingfisher seizes the slippery prey and carries it back to his perch.

This bird is a male the all dark bill lacking the pink colour of the lower mandible in the female.

The design of a kingfisher's beak is aerodynamically efficient, allowing it to dive from its perch, towards its prey, with maximum speed and minimum splash. In fact, the beak design is so clever that the front of many Japanese bullet trains are modelled to mimic it.

It was once thought that kingfishers had destructively voracious appetites, so much so that they were persecuted by owners of fisheries in the 1800s.

There are eighty different species of Kingfisher in the world, but only one is found in the United Kingdom.  They range in size from the largest, the Kookaburra found in Australia to the smallest, the Oriental Dwarf Kingfisher found in South East Asia.

 

This was something special and quite an unprecedented opportunity to get up quite close to this stunningly beautiful little bird.

It dived once and returned to another strand of bramble a little further along.

Then it moved again, this time to a post.

It sat there for a short while until being spooked by a fisherman and headed off in the direction of the Lake.

As we moved away we were told of a Dartford Warbler that was apparently showing well in the bramble and gorse a short way from where we were.  On reaching the spot we immediately found it and it flew from the bank across the ditch into a clump of bramble.

A male bird, at first it was flitting around in amongst the bramble, the dark colour making it difficult to follow.

But eventually it came up to a strand in the open and performed very well.

It then dropped down back into the bramble and tested my ability to track it as it crept in and out of the branches and leaves.

We walked on and reached Point Field.  looking out across the harbour the tide was falling.

The falling tide was revealing the islands in the mud and waders were flocking around as they sought out dry land.

A photographer passed us at pace as if he knew where he was going.  We watched as he stopped on the west side just past the northern fence line of Point Field.  I had seen the owls on the ground there before and we decided it was too much of a coincidence.  We quickly made our way around and sure enough there was an owl sat on a post.

It appeared quite content to sit on the post, occasionally looking around.

We were able to get a little closer by dropping down from the sea wall.

Then another owl flew from the gorse and bramble in Point Field and past the owl on the post and out on to the marsh where it was lost from sight..  Then a few minutes after that another owl came out of Point Field but this time flew towards the first owl on the post.

As you can see the first owl was not happy with this and was glaring at the intruder.

There was no confrontation and the intruder dropped to the ground where they engaged with more staring.

Eventually it flew up and sat in the bramble close by, both owls keeping an eye on each other.

So with three owls present it was a case of what is the next best course of action.  At some stage they were going to hunt around Point Field and where we were was not going to provide good views.  We decided to head back to the position on the west side of the field and wait there.

It wasn't a long wait, but enough for us to start doubting the decision as there were still people watching the owls where we had left them.  In the mean time we had a Curlew fly in quite close.

Then a Short-eared Owl appeared over the bushes heading into Point Field. 

We learnt later that this was the bird that had flown out onto the marsh and not the two perched, they had remained.

They move effortlessly, gliding across the grass and bushes, their out stretched wings beating an irregular rhythm. As they quarter the ground their exceptional hearing and eye sight is looking to pick out signs of small mammals hidden in the grasses below them.

Short-eared Owls have a flight style like no other. It’s erratic, to say the least. Often described as “moth-like”, it flaps its wings high in a slow, floppy fashion.

It completed several laps of Point Field, pausing and hovering in places to check for a possible prey.

Very soon these birds will be returning to whence they came, Short-eared Owls have been recorded making significant journeys and it is possible these birds arrived here from Scandinavia.

It then settled on to a bush on the edge of the field where it spent some time looking around.

 It took off once again and this time headed out across the marsh towards the Lake.  The last time I had been here one of the Shorties did exactly the same and spent some time flying around the rough grass around the lake and over the reed bed.  I decided to follow it expecting the same once again, but after s a very brief excursion around the grass as I arrived it flew up gained height and then headed back across the marsh.

As I raced back to Ian, he, sensibly had decided not to run off, the owl was flying just north of the Deeps and then settled on a post.  It was there until disturbed by some walkers, when it flew off and was lost to sight behind the trees.

We stayed for a while, but the cold was getting into the bones.  In the end we decided we had been given quite a good day and that waiting with the light fading was not going to be constructive, so we headed back.  We learnt later that the other two birds did show, but in poor light.

If this was to be the last encounter of the winter then I can't complain, I just hope we get the opportunity to see them again later in the year.