In the dark

Taking advantage of the days beginning to lengthen I spent an hour on the Carr on Monday evening just soaking up the atmosphere. Earlier in the day Robins, Great Tits, Blue Tits, Dunnocks, and Greenfinch had all been singing with some gusto but as the night drew in the singing had stopped to be replaced by calls from birds going to roost or getting up to feed.

With no action from the Short-eared owls I stood and listened in almost total dark with only the glare of the airport and city beyond I recorded a late Blackbird dashing noisily to roost, a flock of Lapwing invisible in the middle of a flooded field and a Tawny Owl calling from the woods to the north. Crow, Rook and Jackdaw jostled for roost space in the woods as a Heron glided past and a Snipe snatched in the gloom above. The squeak of Mallard wings passed overhead to join the laughing females already on the flood with the bleating Teal and a lone pitchow from a grazing Wigeon briefly pierced the air. The gathering cackling of Greylag geese as the flock approached from the east and then wiffled down onto the water causing a Pheasant to bolt noisly from the roadside as a Robin grabbed a last morsel from the road before diving back into the bushes. That's fourteen species plus a barking fox and grunting deer. Busy place down here in the evening!