Sunday 7 April 2013

New Forest new species (Goshawk and Green-winged Teal)

Yesterday me and my brother both went with Chris and Paul to the New Forest our target specie was Goshawk. An hours drive took us down to a well known Goshawk raptor watch point. There we waited for a good half an hour luckily this time in the sun before we got our first glimpse of a very distant GOSHAWK. This was a great start and we had got our target bird quite quickly. But these views were not satisfactory so we stayed a little longer to see if we would get a few more. Sure enough a few minutes later we were on another this time a little closer but still distant Goshawk. After this they all began to start showing themselves and we had up to about 5+ birds! One pair came close enough for record shots which I was very happy to get seeing as how rare views like that were.

Red Kite




Goshawks

Before Leaving we made a little trip around the woods were we got Marsh Tit, Nuthatch, Bullfinch and Stonechat. Now it was off to the Green-winged Teal another lifer for me. It took us a short half an hour drive to get to Pennington Marshes where we headed straight over to the Fishtail Lagoon where it had last been seen. There we connected with Black-tailed Godwit, Dunlin, Snipe, Redshank, Spotted Redshank (a year tick) and a few Teal. It took my brother only a few minutes before he had found us the GREEN-WINGED TEAL which was showing well for scope views but only was allowing record shots.


Green-winged Teal

Spoonbill

Spoonbill and a pair of Ruff were a nice way to end the day.


3 comments:

  1. Hi Ephraim , excellent photos of the Goshawk , looks like they were closer than the ones we saw , well done on getting two lifers . Cheers Rob

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  2. Thank you, they showed very obligingly. I saw that you went to Stode Marsh again unlikey missing the Crane by 10 minutes.

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  3. Ephraim- It is exciting for me to learn that you are very interested in the goshawk. Here- in many areas of the U.S. the goshawk is moving into cities and suburbs, as a wintering migrant or as a nearby nesting situation. Please heed- THE MAN WHO SAW TOO MANY GOSHAWKS- my ebook as distributed by www.smashwords.com. The best- Nelson Briefer- Anacortes, WA. www.goshawkspugetsound.blogspot.com.

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