Two notable sightings from our garden this afternoon:
Firstly a huge commotion in the field beyond the garden alerted me to a flock of
100+ Crows, Jackdaws and gulls mobbing something on the ground, that turned out
to be rather cowed Peregrine, ducking as it was repeatedly dive-bombed from above. By the
time I’d fetched my binoculars, the corvids had mostly lost interest and were circling
higher overhead, while the hawk was still sitting there looking rather shaken, before ambling first one
way then the other across the grass - in that peculiar lopsided gait peregrines have - only to stop again as if uncertain what to do next. Then a curious
lamb walked up to it and it flew off low to disappear out of view behind the hedge - with a
lot of peregrine scolding noises! I’m wondering how the situation started – my
guess is that perhaps it dived at a corvid and grounded it, only for the
victim’s distress calls to attract rather too many friends! There was no sign
of an injured victim, so if this was the case it must have escaped.
Then at dusk I was going out to our gate and noticed a single House Martin
flying repeatedly up to last year’s nest under our front eaves, before landing
on the nest rim, peering in for a few seconds and then disappearing inside to roost
there. This is the first House Martin I’ve seen at all this year, and it
wasn’t around earlier in the afternoon – is it one of last year’s pair newly
arrived back, or a passing migrant that spotted a roosting opportunity as it flew
through Penrhyncoch at sunset? I guess we’ll find out in the next couple of days...