Merry Christmas and a Happy New Gyr

Ed and I were up bright and early for an 0830 start at Rönnen this morning. It paid off and we muddled ourselves to good views of the over-wintering gyr falcon. A large falcon was located immediately on arrival sitting huddled up on the island in the distance, but we wrote it off as a peregrine! When a buzzard landed nearby though, it became apparent that the bird was in fact a gyr and when the bird flew into better light onto a dune top, it was bloody obvious. Why is learning, littered with these painful lessons?

We still cannot believe how dark the bird looked on first view, compared with a better-lit view later on at the same range. So we got there in the end and the flight views as the bird left the site at 0905 secured the lifer for Ed. It was probably the same falcon we saw yesterday evening at the same spot (which we erroneously identified as a peregrine) but there you go...

Other birds here included scaup (5 female-types), velvet scoter (male), Slavonian grebe (2), gannet (1), two superb adult white-tailed eagles, hen harrier (male) and two common crossbills. After so much excitement it was perhaps a little unfair to return to the car to find the starter motor had chosen Christmas Eve to depart this world and we were temporarily stranded. We did get home in time for our Christmas feed and pressies though. Happy Christmas and a Great 2010 to all reading this.

Journey's end today - the car at the doctor's again with electrical problems.