6 raptors at NDC

 Decided to spend the afternoon at North Duffield Carrs. I arrived at 1330 and was pleased to see only 3 cars in the car park.

There was no one in the Geoff Smith hide, so I decided to base myself there. Another birder joined me after about 20 minutes and then Chris Downes walked into the hide. It was the first time that I had seen Chris this year, so it was very pleasant to be able to chat and do some bird watching with him.

Neither of us had seen whooper swans this year, so it was nice to get a joint tick. The birds were a fair distance away from the hide, so it was mainly scanning through our telescopes. The male ducks, including pintail, shoveler and wigeon looked smart in the winter afternoon sunshine, The 20 plus shelducks also stood out in the bright light.

A marsh harrier began quartering over the far reeds and then we were able to see a peregrine sat on a fence post. Lots of geese at the far end of the reserve, mostly canadas with a few greylag, and I managed to see 2 white fronted geese,

Chris left soon after this, and his parting remark was "I don't want to know if you see a hen harrier"

Birders from West Yorkshire joined us in the hide, so there were 6 of us looking out for birds. Large groups of starlings kept flying across the reserve, and in the distance we could see buzzards, a kestrel hovered in front of the hide.

A chap from Bilbrough then spotted a ringtail hen harrier, and we were all able to watch it as it flew across the far end of the reserve. It was lost from sight for a few minutes before re-appearing and continuing to fly east at quite a speed. This was our 6th raptor for the afternoon the others being, marsh harrier, red kite, kestrel, peregrine and buzzard.

The chaps from West Yorkshire left to go to a quiz, and then the starling murmuration began. Not as spectacular as some of the photos I have seen, mostly because the birds kept low over the water. Was this due to the presence of the peregrine?

A short black and whit video of what I saw of the murmuration.