{"id":10614,"date":"2015-02-01T21:29:54","date_gmt":"2015-02-01T21:29:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.simplybirdsandmoths.co.uk\/sbam\/?p=10614"},"modified":"2024-08-07T16:31:11","modified_gmt":"2024-08-07T16:31:11","slug":"fenland-moorland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.simplybirdsandmoths.co.uk\/sbam\/fenland-moorland\/","title":{"rendered":"Fenland & Moorland"},"content":{"rendered":"

A weekend of two contrastingly different habitats<\/strong><\/span>. Saturday 31st January was spent in the Fenlands of Cambridgeshire & Lincolnshire and Sunday morning on the snowy moors of North Derbyshire. Along with RichardP and Glyn, we\u00a0visited several Fenland reserves on Saturday in very grey and snowy conditions. Just managed to see the roosting\u00a0Long-eared Owl<\/span>\u00a0 on view at Deeping Lakes Reserve in Lincolnshire, before a heavy snow shower. Also some displaying Goosander and Goldeneye, which were simply stunning in the snowy conditions and several Sparrowhawk <\/span>were hunting the area. A single Pink-footed Goose was amongst the flock of Grey Lag Geese. Travelling on we stopped off at Holme Fen in Cambridgeshire, looking for a Rough-legged Buzzard. It was blowing a gale and the conditions at this time for raptors was a no-go. We did find a Common Buzzard roosting in a small hedgerow that temporarily got us going. Some large flocks, several hundred strong, of Greenfinch and Goldfinch were quite remarkable. Also several Tree Sparrow<\/span> in a nearby garden.<\/p>\n

Our main aim though was to try for the Short-eared Owls that have been seen regularly at the Nene Washes. It was still blowing a gale and not ideal conditions for viewing “hunting” owls. We did manage to see 2\u00a0\u00a0Common Crane<\/span>, 5 Marsh Harrier and a superb “Grey Male” Hen Harrier. But alas no owls this time.<\/p>\n

I spent Sunday morning, 1st February, with RichardJ looking for Hawfinch<\/span> at a traditional site around Cromford. Over the years, this area has been very reliable,\u00a0especially during the winter months, to see this stunning finch. After some intense searching, as they can be very elusive, one was discovered in a distant Beech tree. It eventually flew a little closer and, albeit briefly, we had some good views.\u00a0After spending several hours up on the moors, where there was still heavy show on the ground and freezing cold temperatures, I discovered a superb “Grey Male” Hen Harrier, hunting across the moorland. It gave amazing views for 10 minutes or so until it disappeared across the heather, putting up Red Grouse<\/span> and Snipe in it’s wake. The Year List moves along to 124.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Common<\/p>\n

Common Crane<\/strong> – Nene Washes, Cambridgeshire – Tony Davison\u00a9<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Hen\"Hen\"Hen \"Hen \"Hen \"Hen<\/p>\n

Hen Harrier<\/strong> -male – Above six images – North Derbyshire Moors – Tony Davison\u00a9<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A weekend of two contrastingly different habitats. Saturday 31st January was spent in the Fenlands of Cambridgeshire & Lincolnshire and Sunday morning on the snowy moors of North Derbyshire. Along with RichardP and Glyn, we\u00a0visited several Fenland reserves on Saturday in very grey and snowy conditions. Just managed to see the roosting\u00a0Long-eared Owl\u00a0 on view […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,606],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds","category-birdsof2015"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.simplybirdsandmoths.co.uk\/sbam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.simplybirdsandmoths.co.uk\/sbam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.simplybirdsandmoths.co.uk\/sbam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.simplybirdsandmoths.co.uk\/sbam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.simplybirdsandmoths.co.uk\/sbam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.simplybirdsandmoths.co.uk\/sbam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10614\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.simplybirdsandmoths.co.uk\/sbam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.simplybirdsandmoths.co.uk\/sbam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.simplybirdsandmoths.co.uk\/sbam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}