Shapwick Heath
Leaving Devon for a day, we headed towards Glastonbury in Somerset to a reserve I'd popped into last year on a cold windy day. This time the breeze was more gentle and it was warm, and my word, what a difference. When the sun came out, so did the insects and the skies were filled with dozens of hobbies. I've never seen so many before and it was an amazing sight. They outnumbered the swifts and swallows at times!
In addition to the hobbies were bitterns. Booming and flying between patches of reeds. We also saw them clambering around the the reeds and chasing each other too.
On one of the larger pools was a garganey although too distant for even a record shot, and we caught a couple of glimpses of marsh harriers flying by.
And we spotted cuckoos all over the reserve, including 3 of them flying over the reeds in front of us, but we were too surprised to get a decent shot!
Leaving Devon for a day, we headed towards Glastonbury in Somerset to a reserve I'd popped into last year on a cold windy day. This time the breeze was more gentle and it was warm, and my word, what a difference. When the sun came out, so did the insects and the skies were filled with dozens of hobbies. I've never seen so many before and it was an amazing sight. They outnumbered the swifts and swallows at times!
In addition to the hobbies were bitterns. Booming and flying between patches of reeds. We also saw them clambering around the the reeds and chasing each other too.
On one of the larger pools was a garganey although too distant for even a record shot, and we caught a couple of glimpses of marsh harriers flying by. 
And we spotted cuckoos all over the reserve, including 3 of them flying over the reeds in front of us, but we were too surprised to get a decent shot! 
1 comment:
Pete, I was at Shapwick two weeks ago and had some good sightings of Bitterns too. A few days later I saw them again at Minsmere. Also great views of Marsh Harriers. And Nightjars, almost in daylight, up on the heath.
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