The Kestrel Hunts by Twilight

I'm now in deep darkness as I leave for work each morning, a darkness pierced by the bright dawn call of blackbirds, and now sometimes suffused in thick mist.

By evening when I leave, the day has been and gone all but unseen by myself, and the sun has set leaving an intermediate twilight, with the golden-purple girdle of venus hugging the horizon. The smoke from the sugar factory acts as a wind-gauge, allowing me to realise the wind will be in my face when cycling home, as ever.

Against this backdrop, the wagtails have now indeed arrived in greater numbers  - see my post here - to the point where now well over a hundred are bubbling around their roost trees by 630pm. Their elegantly undulating flight sits black against the sky.

Further round, where the barn owl quarters the waste ground, a kestrel could be seen hovering against a strong blustery wind. Initially around ten metres up, the scythe winged predator is able to control its flight as if it is in a lift, lowering and raising itself with little apparent effort.

At one point it was barely a metre above the ground, before executing a messy drop to ground level, where it apparently missed whatever prey it had seen. No comparison with the 220 mph swoops of a peregrine, but its hover is something else entirely; undisturbed by even a wind as strong as this, it is able to focus on a small area of ground, and detect even the smallest prey species before bringing taloned death from the skies...

...but nit this time. Not this time.

Rapturous Raptors

First sight of snow free ground and blue sky made me decide to head out on the Coddington circuit today, pretty pleased to see a yellowhammer as I went over the A1 bridge. There's not much in the world yellower than a yellowhammer's head!

Also enjoying snow free ground today would be raptors, giving them a better chance of hunting than the recent terrible weather has given them. I was saying to myself as I went over the aofrementioned A1 bridge "I wonder if there's a kestrel in the trees here" and lo! one appeared flying swiftly left to right across the road.

After a bit of a haul up the hill into the back of Coddington - I'm not used to running on hills at the moment - I saw a buzzard just flying into land in the stand of trees at the entrance to the village. Only it didn't land. It stretched it's wings out wide, white underwing marking showing plainly in the bright light, and turned into the wind looking for any kind of thermal to soar on. I didn't rate it's chances as good, despite the blue sky and bright sun, but if there was any rising air to find, the Buzzard would find it.

No other bird I'm likely to see around here commands the skies like a buzzard. Thousands of feet up they circle, and can probably read the logos on my trainers...

Ringlets and Skippers

Earlier today I was out on my bike and came across a couple of sand martins opposite their usual nesting site in the castle wall.

First I've seen this year, seems a bit late for them to be nesting if they are thinking about doing that. Never mind, whatever they are there for they can eat all the horrible midges for me.

Went for a run, and headed South down the cycle path. Lots of pretty blue and purple wildflowers about, and, lo! Some butterflies. A few Ringlets have made an appearance, and also there was a Small Skipper - or a Large one, I can't tell the damn things apart when I am running past them - a few Large Whites, and a flash of brown, if you can have such a thing as a flash of brown, which might have been a speckled wood.

The path to Cotham has attractive life in the verges, before you get to the rubbish tip at least. But I didn't go so far, I turned off at British Gypsum and ran along Bowbridge Lane. A single Kestrel flew up, as I ran alongside the dyke that always intrigues me, but as I rounded the corner where the substation is, three more seemed to be in the air! A couple of them went and sat on a pylon.

Wonder if that was a little Kestrel family I saw! "Ahhhh" say the sentimental types!