Admittedly it might be a bit tricky from this very dodgy digi-binned shot above, but I'll give you a clue - the small squiggly lines at the top are panicky waders, while the larger squiggly blob at the bottom is carrying a big fish.
NIce work from Pete Kinsella and Tim Vaughan who got the word out fast that an Osprey was on the Alt estuary today.
As luck would have it I was driving down the coast to pick up a colleague from Formby at the time, so managed good, if distant views of the raptor from Cabin Hill.
When I got there just after 1210, the bird was sitting out on the sands, being hassled for its fish by corvids, but soon took to the air and circled high over the mouth of estuary looking for somewhere to eat its lunch in peace.
Attempted some poor long range digi-binning as Tim, Laurence Atter et al admired the bird.
Although very distant, I couldn't see much of a breast band on the bird, and its back wasn't particularly dark - it struck me as a young bird, but I could be wrong.
Didn't matter though, hard to beat a lunchtime Osprey.
Eyes to the skies everyone, eyes to the skies...
- Post to:
del.icio.us
Digg
Newsvine
Nowpublic
Reddit
« Previous | Home | Next »
Hi John,
Was also watching Osprey same day as the Alt bird but mine was on Rutland Water, one of the introduced birds or offspring therefof.
Do you know what fish species the Osprey had plucked out of the Alt estuary?
Grey Mullet used to hang around there years ago so I guess one of them may have fallen victim to the talons from above.
Cheers,
Barrie
Cuckoo calling this afternoon on Cheshire Lines at Barton spur.
Howdy Barrie, both Osprey and fish too far away to work out what the prey was. Big enough to be a Bass I suppose.
Hi John,
I was a little closer to the action than you guys I think and even then it was difficult to get an ID on the fish.
However I`ve watched Grey Herons catching Grey Mullet at the mouth of the river this week (at fairly close range ) and it looked similar.
As for the age/sex of the bird, it had a diffuse breast band and the mantle looked fairly uniformly dark but who knows? (pics of the bird on my blog).
Glad you caught up with it,
Cheers, Pete.