The morning’s forecast was not one that I had pegged to spend looking out to sea for Raptors but by mid morning it was apparent that the forecasted light Sw winds here in Dover were in fact coming from the South East and the yellow haze of fumes hung between here and the continent suggesting they were the same winds across the channel plus pretty good visability – ‘HB weather’.
I’d been busy first thing but was up the cliffs by 11.30 looking out South over the Eastern docks and at 12.55 picked up a Honey buzzard fairly low coming over the Eastern arm of the harbour directly towards me.
A direct hit; it flew right above where I stood and gave great views as it continued NW towards the castle and beyond. A typical line of arrival here. The strong light can make sexing tricky and I took the bird to be a female at the time however the above photo suggests a male with dipped in ink primary tips, grey face and clean secondaries.
17 minutes later and an dark obvious female HB came in on a similar line, only a little higher.
I remained in place till 15.30 with no other raptor arrivals. Ive earmarked tomorrow and Tuesday as potential days for more of the same. lets see!
PERDIX BIRDER 