Morons

 Another grey start to proceedings this morning as Alan Shorrock and I headed along to Blatherwycke starting our day at the churchyard. No sign of the hoped for Hawfinches I'm afraid and there wasn't that much activity of any sort compared to on some previous visits. From here we followed the public footpath until we had a view of the lake where a pair of Mandarins were the highlight. Deciding that we weren't going to see much more we moved on to Eyebrook.

Red Kite and Cattle Egret

A scan from the car park below Stoke Dry at Eyebrook produced a selection of the commoner wildfowl but not much else. We moved on towards the Sharp End noting a Cattle Egret on the way, our views were not prolonged however as it flew off down the reservoir. At the Sharp End half a dozen Dunlin were associating with the Lapwings and there was a male Stonechat too. By now there was an increase in activity on the shooting estate next to the reservoir. Growing numbers of "sportsmen" were gathering with shotguns poised while beaters on the hill began to chivvy the prey towards the killers. One person climbed the fence and stood next to the water causing a few panicked duck to flee. This relatively minor disturbance was nothing however when compared to the fusillade that followed. Gunfire crackled sending most of the birds skywards with many heading towards the dam. Some luckless partridges fell into the water where presumably they drowned. Sickened by the sounds and sights of the slaughter Shozzer and I moved off and headed towards the island.

Dire diver pics - again! Red-throated Diver

From north of the island we saw two rather distant adult Yellow-legged Gulls between us and the plantation. A short hop saw us reach Ketley's Corral from where the juvenile Red-throated Diver was seen. This is a different bird to the adult that was present last week meaning that there have been three divers at Eyebrook within a week. Unfortunately it was always distant which means my dire collection of rubbishy record shots was expanded a little more! From the bottom of the hill we had further views of the Cattle Egret before it once again decided to fly off to re-join the herd of cattle near Alex Lane Gate. This was the last sighting of note before we left having decided that Saturday visits may have to stop for the time being. Neither of us want to watch so called sportsmen blasting living creatures to oblivion and particularly not when their moronic and murderous activity causes so much disturbance to the birdlife on the res.