5-3-09 Shrike 2.......... Harwood

Thursday it seemed warm and sunny at home so I thought I would go and look for raptors , went up Harwood Forest area , a Buzzard over a plantation caught my eye it was joined by another 4, they circled lifting all the while till they where out of sight, parked the car and set my scope up , still sunny but with a very cold wind , Kestrel sitting on a small pine, and a distant Buzzard it was not looking good. Nigel of Abbey Meadows blog pulled up excited with his find of a Great Grey Shrike in Harwood , and why not a great bird to see and even better to find your own,I have only found one , a bird that dropped in at Ridley Park behind the Tennis court , it landed turned to look at me and was gone in a second.
Directions where shown on the map as to where the bird was located and I decided to go and have a look , giving it a few more minutes to scan for Goshawk we picked a bird up in the distance with bins and scoping found it to be a Goshawk also a Peregrine past as we viewed, the bird headed with purpose and disappeared over the woods , I expected it to come over the road which it did .
So it was off to refind this shrike ,pulled in at Harwood and trekked to the area, no sign, further on no sign, back and forth, no sign , I tried to get to an area to see further set the scope up and picked the bird up way to the south , moved position but it also had moved way to the north always keeping 3-4 hundred yards off so it was not me moving it , took what chance I got and photographed it from a long way away , it gave good views in the scope , I had a good open position so I thought I would stay here till late afternoon but the snow put paid to that ,falling heavy , so I thought time to head home ,also had Green Woodpecker here another year tick.
Thanks to Abbey Meadows for the info, you where very lucky to see it from where you did given the area, I hope you got a Lottery ticket on the way home ...........
Buzzard now a fairly common sight in Northumberland , always good to see

Two coming together for an instant

Five in total going out of sight

Goshawk, you will have to take my word for it

Great Grey Shrike No 2 it's a long way off

again it's a long way off , it was fairly warm and at the distance could be a slight haze,

what a difference between the two birds and there feeding , the Black Lough bird fairly faithful to it's perch, hovering a good deal, and this bird which moved from one side of the clearing to the other

From nice sunny spells to snow, as it starts to fall heavily and I legged it back to the car.



Below is another bit of poor video it's a long way off, no prizes for I.D.'ing the two birds going past

2009 Year List 125