Monday, September 09, 2013

Marsh harrier - garden tick

After Nick D's grapevine report of a marsh harrier in the general area, I thought I'd have a look outside as I was working from home. Nothing to see at 12:15, but kept peeking out every 5 minutes or so, and at 12:45 a cream crown marsh harrier appeared from the direction of Stoodley Pike (indicating it had come from Withens Clough, or possibly Whiteholme area??) and flew east along the ridge of Errinden. Every corvid in the district seemed to have joined it by this point. It carried on regardless straight towards Hebden Bridge and out of sight, but heading for Pecket Well. There has been one loafing about in the Bradford recording area in that direction (Leeshaw) for some days now, so could be the same bird?

Nick's harrier was last seen speeding the other direction towards Sowerby Bridge at 12:15, so he feels it was probably a different bird.

1 comment:

David Sutcliffe said...

Nice one Matt.