Caroline Pickett and I both had excellent views of the pallid harrier as it flew E past the hide at 10.10 this morning. I was still wading down to the hide, and watched it settle briefly on a fence post before carrying on inland. We watched the marsh harrier for a while, then at 10.50 the pallid reappeared from the E and flew along the N side of the Corse, before heading up Kilpaison Burrows and settling on the grass among some sheep near the top. We both had to leave shortly after that. On her approach Caroline had seen peregrine and kestrel, a merlin appeared briefly on Kilpaison Burrows. 4 chough flew down from the Gupton direction. Small groups of lapwing, golden plover, snipe and teal were constantly on the move, shoveler could be glimpsed and a wigeon heard in the bit just upstream from the hide which you can no longer see because of the new fencing - which makes WEBS more of a challenge these days.
I saw buzzard, several little egrets and 1500 lapwing on the remaining flooded meadows upstream.
So the pallid harrier is still very much about, though mobile and unpredictable. An intriguing chat with Steve Alderman (farmer) who may have seen it over Christmas (before any actual birder) without knowing what it was - I've sent him some photos and directed him to the blog.
