We're just back from a trip to Alberta where one of the many raptors we saw was this northern harrier, soaring over the trees in Big Knife Provincial Park. This is a female, the male having pale grey underparts and throat.
So it was with considerable pleasure that, as we drove back across Ardnamurchan Estate land on our way home to Kilchoan this morning, we spotted the local equivalent, a hen harrier, a bird we haven't seen for some time. This is a male, with his very distinctive grey plumage and black-tipped wings.
He was sitting on the ground some distance from the road which was frustrating as the resulting pictures aren't very good, but....
....even more so because, when he rose to fly away, he was obviously carrying something dark, something so heavy he only managed to stay in the air for a few metres before dropping back to the ground to take a rest.
To make up for the blurred pictures of the hen harrier, here is a picture of the greenfinch which arrived on our terrace wall almost as soon as we put some seed out. We saw one a few weeks ago after a long absence, so we're hoping this one has a nest nearby so we'll be seeing many more greenfinches.
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