Nene Washes

It was freezing at Eldernell on Friday afternoon but I wouldn’t have missed it for anything.

A Barn Owl was sitting on the fence just before we got to the car park – which I could already see was fuller than usual.  Barn Owls are just lovely aren’t they?  Any visit to a nature reserve that starts with a Barn Owl has to be a good one.

The car park was well and truly full. As I got out to start scanning for raptors there were Cranes calling in the distance, and Whooper Swans too, but the Cranes were just great.

A distant Short-eared Owl flew over some rough grassland that in a few months time will hold Black-tailed Godwits and Corncrakes. It was a distant view, but Short-eared Owls are just lovely aren’t they? And any view is a prize to be savoured.

A Kingfisher flew past. Top bird!  We’ve only been here 10 minutes!

A distant Marsh Harrier made me wonder whether it was a Hen Harrier for a while and then another harrier might have been either species on the basis of the distant brief view we had. There was almost always a Barn Owl and a Short-eared Owl in sight. A few ducks went past.  The gulls were heading somewhere in the direction of Peterborough to roost and the Crows and Jackdaws were gathering over a wood to do the same.  What is all this communal roosting for exactly?  It’s still a bit of a mystery to me.

A very, very, nice man asked whether we would like to see the Long-eared Owl – and of course we said ‘yes, please!’.  We walked c100m to the east and looked across a water-filled ditch into a line of bushes that were trying to be trees. There, looking back at us with sharp orange eyes was a Long-eared Owl – quite cat-like. Quite still. Quite thin. Quite lovely. Any visit to a nature reserve that includes a Long-eared Owl has to be a good one.  The LEO looked inscrutable and I wondered how we looked to him (or her). I was feeling cold but very happy – did that show?

It seemed wrong, in a way, to leave the LEO but it wasn’t doing anything, and didn’t look as though it planned to do anything except sit there and wait for dark. So, after a while, we started scanning again for other birds. The SEO was still hunting, as was the BO. A three owl day – BO, SEO and LEO!  I don’t get many of those.

We were still scanning, but I had to keep putting my hands in my pocket to warm them up – it was colder than cold.

A Sparrowhawk shot past.

The Kingfisher passed by again.

Because there were four of us, we tended to chat to each other. If I had been on my own I would have spent more time looking through binoculars and less time chatting (I might have muttered to myself that it was cold). But the chatting was good too. Luckily, although the car park was emptying gradually, a man who was less sociable, or more focussed, or simply miles more observant than me, shouted out first that two Cranes were flying past (which they were) and then that there was an adult male Hen Harrier flying past too (which there was!).

It was really what I had hoped to see, especially a ‘grey ghost’ of a male. It was distant view, and in failing light, but of quite long duration, which was what mattered most. Any day when you see a male Hen Harrier is a good day!  For two of our party this was a ‘lifer’ – in fact for one of our party this was the fourth lifer of the visit (which was by now just over an hour in duration).  We watched the harrier until it settled down on what might have been its roost site for the night.

A Red Fox ran from right to left in the middle distance.

By now we were alone in the car park and there wasn’t much light. but the vista of the Nene Washes was striking enough.  The eastern sky was still light – there was even some blue in it and some orange.  The other three were sitting in the car drinking hot chocolate while I stood outside in the cold enjoying the scene on my own.

It was time to head home to watch England lose to Wales in the rugby (but they didn’t, did they!) and it had been a great visit to one of my favourite nature reserves.  Two species of harrier and three species of owl, with Kingfisher, Crane and wild swans thrown in too. It had been a good decision to make this visit.  The only thing that could make it better would be a LO.

Three hundred metres down the road, in the dark, but silhouetted against the sky, sitting in a tall Ash was a small owl-like lump. It had to be…or was it? Then the Little Owl flew out of the tree and away into the dark.  A four-owl day!  Little Owls are just lovely aren’t they? Any visit to a nature reserve that ends with a Little Owl has to be a good one.

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