H5

 24.01.24 Before I went to Burdon Moor on the 24^th I had a drive to Far Pastures. There wasn’t a lot around but as I was driving up the lane to the main road there were a couple of Red Kites flying over the field to my right so I pulled over to the side of the road to see if I could get some shots of them. One was H5 the other was not tagged. H5 is, according to The Friends of Red Kites web site, a ten-year-old male and was fledged in Sunniside. As he came closer, I noticed he had something in his talons and it wasn’t something you see everyday (although if you live in Rowlands Gill, it probably is) it was what looked like a piece of pork belly. He landed on a telegraph pole and he started to eat his meal. Now unfortunately, in my opinion there are a couple of things wrong with these images one there isn’t a blue sky and two the choice of where H5 decided to land to eat his bait however you can only photograph what’s in front of you at the time so I shouldn’t complain too much.

He had a couple of goes at trying to land with his pork belly.

On the second attempt he succeeded.

Another Kite was still flying around and H5 was warning it off.

I think he was trying to tell me to keep my distance too.

He was eating the pork belly

But kept getting blown about by the wind.

The untagged Kite was still flying around

So H5 tried to down the rest of the pork belly in one.

He didn’t manage it 

But was still warning the other one to keep off.

Eventually he flew off with the left overs.

While still telling the other Kite to keep off.

Same Deer? different day

 24.01.24 Another walk around Burdon Moor produced what I believe is one of the same Roe Deer in the same field as it was the last time I was there. The pale Buzzard that I have also seen before was hunting over the fields however the numbers of Redwing and Fieldfare were well down on what they have been.

1000

 22.01.24 I’d seen some pictures on X of Mandarin Duck at Linzford so I thought I would go and try to get some pictures for myself. Unfortunately, I didn’t find any Mandarin so for my 1000 Blog you have Red Kites. Two were over the field opposite the Garden Centre, and as they were coming quite close, I filled my boots with images of them.

Close encounter

 18.01.24 Coming down from the top of the loop at Burdon Moor I saw a couple of Roe Deer in the field on the right-hand side. At first, they were at a bit of a distance but as the wind was blowing from them to me, they started to come closer. I stood still, quite close to a silver birch tree, and the deer came even closer. Every so often they would stop feeding and look at me but they didn’t seem bothered at all about my being there and just kept on feeding then they slowly wandered off. There were also still good numbers of Redwing and Fieldfare feeding on what was left of the berries. A canny day out.

A quizzical Roe Deer.

Quite happy eating.

Checking me out.

Redwing.

Fieldfare.