"Definitely a sparrow hawk," came the rapid reply. "Not sure if it's a male or female, but I'd go with female due to the lighter body. The books have the male with a slightly orangey under body, while the female is paler."
Then, today, I get another email. "On my walk with Callan this morning I came across a pair of redpoll. Now don't ask if they were lesser or common but they were a male and a female. And I had my first sighting of a swallow at 0920 on Friday 10th April. They do arrive from April but I think this is a wee bit early for us. All these sightings were between the cattle grid and the silage bails along the main road."
The Raptor has a wonderful camera, but there was no accompanying picture of either redpolls or swallows. I've even given him a memory stick to make it easy for him to send them. So I don't think either redpolls or swallows count until we've seen a picture.
All we've seen, beside a high-flying sparrow hawk, is swans heading north and this, our resident song thrush, who is now singing beautifully from the tops of local trees.
Hi, as an occasional visitor to Ardnamurchan it's wonderful to be able to catch up with the local news & abundant beauty of the area through your diary. Thanks for all of it.
ReplyDeleteHi JP - many thanks for your kind comment - so pleased you enjoy the Diary. Jon
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