4 Red kites at North Duffield Carrs

 

Plenty of spring sunshine on Thursday afternoon when I arrived at North Duffield Carrs.

The water level is slowly going down, but plenty of birds still on the reserve.

A flock of about 30 pink-footed geese were quite restless, having several fly arounds.

To the left of the Garganey hide were at least 3 grey herons, who were tolerating each other as long as they kept their distance from each other. One caught a frog and had trouble swallowing it.

 

A long-tailed tit was busily feeding next to the hide

Several male reed buntings

On my back to the Geoff Smith hide, a brown hare was in the field to my right.

I just managed to see it through the vegetation, before it ran off  Once inside the hide I saw 8 tufted ducks on the scrape, 6 males and 2 females. A pair of mallards were mating

4 red kites were circling above the scrape and one saw something on the ground to the right of the scrape and landed for about a second to collect it.

A pleasant couple of hours and 42 birds on my day list.