Evening Owl search!

 I had been informed that a Barn Owl had been seen in and around Hurst Meadows, so decided after a weekend spent indoors, cake-making and avoiding the rain, an evening stroll would be in order to search for it, the weather on the app seemed ok, due to my over enthusiasm and badly over estimating how long it would take me to get to the meadows from my house on foot, I arrived way to early for Owls!! First bird of note was a Kestrel, blew in on the brisk wind, the weather app was now saying 57% chance of showers, zipped around the meadows and disappeared, chased off by a couple of Jackdaws, a few Meadow Pipits appeared from the grass and a small flock of Goldfinches were feeding on seed heads pictures were difficult with birds appearing for a few seconds and even I missed the flyover Jay!

Kestrel

I'm not very good at hanging around, so decided on a walk to the round weir and back which I figured would get me back at around Owl time!! The trip out down college lane was largely birdless, though luckily the showers seemed to go either side of me, a couple of Mistle Thrushes on the college cricket pitches were the best of it!

Mistle Thrush

The Weir

At this point a rather nasty shower hit, I took shelter under a tree, nice Rainbow at least and I didn't get to wet!

Things started to improve after this I headed back towards Hurst across the field, big numbers of Meadow Pipits and Skylarks in the stubble couldn't get pics as very flighty, managed to get the Jay this time though! Best bit though was loads of Swallows zipping about the field, not sure how many hours of my life I've spent trying and largely failing to get pics of Swallows on the wing but it's a lot😁 Highly enjoyable though and probably won't get many more opportunities this year, managed a few poor shots though!! 

Jay

Swallow

I know rubbish, but I enjoyed it!! 😁

I hit the hedge line and turned back towards College Lane a couple of Stonechats work the fence line, they maybe common birds but they at least have the decency to be posy!

The College rugby pitches held another Mistle Thrush and a flock of about 20 Wagtails one of which was a juvenile Yellow Wagtail which made a change!

Pied Wagtail

Yellow Wagtail

I headed back towards the Meadows as I was about to walk out into the open, the heavens opened whilst sheltering in the hedge a large flock of Long-tailed Tits went through all around me, most were to close for pictures would have been better with me phone rather than the 600mm lens! Were several Chiffchaffs with the flock as well as Blue and Great Tits couldn't get pics of them either😂 Although one of the Long-tailed Tits posed in the end!! Difficult to say how many birds in the flock but at least 30 would be my guess, possibly more!

Long-tailed Tit

The rain eventually stopped and I headed out on to the meadows, I set up camp at the bottom entrance it looked the most likely area, I stayed in position til nearly dusk, about 30 Meadow Pipits flew up onto the wires presumably pre-roost, they were rudely interrupted by the Kestrel which settled on the wires for a few minutes, a Green Woodpecker flew into a tree all this happened in near gloom at a distance to far for pictures, the wind had dropped, perfect Owl weather and habitat, but no Owl😢 With the clouds starting to gather I gave up and headed for home!