Snipe Snatcher!

Darn it I just missed a Yellow Legged Gull and Immature this morning arriving late at the reserve.

So I settled down to see what was going to transpire during the next few hours.

The usual suspects were on view Green shank, Kingfisher, Greenwoodpecker & snipe.

A good party of Swallows and House martins went through around 13:45.

Then at 1355 A Sparrowhawk launched an attack from the trees to the right of the hide, the first two snipe to lift managed to evade the onslaught but the third, obviously not paying attention was pinned to the ground, no amount of struggling did it any good it was well and truly Sparrowed. After a while the hawk, having adjusted its grip lifted and headed right for the fence posts out of sight of the main hide or even the south hide.

Sadly due to the height of the vegetation on the gravel island no photographic opportunity made itself available. Pity it would have been a crippler! The excitement over it was back to a single juvenile lesser black backed gull and the odd Buzzard over the trees with a very distant Peregrine.

So here is one I prepared earlier!