Thursday 8 September 2011

#100

It was one of my early finishes today so I was at Canons Farm from early afternoon. I stopped at the Watchpoint to have lunch and, after finishing my sandwiches, was thinking of moving on when I got a tweet from Johnny Allan: he'd just had an Osprey go south at Beddington. I knew that anything heading over south from there would go roughly over Coulsdon. This is too distant to pick up waders or terns but gulls, Common Buzzards, geese and Grey Herons etc can be made out clearly heading over the ridge there. In theory, I thought, I should see this bird.

So I scanned the other side of the valley intently. For a while the only things I could see that even vaguely recalled Osprey were Common Buzzards. I was starting to think it was getting on a bit for it to fly by but I noticed a large, long-winged raptor drifting slowly south; it was the Osprey! Brilliant!!! I watched it for three or so minutes before losing it behind some trees. Very happy, I was. The three Whinchats were still knocking about today.

Canons Farm & Banstead Woods Year List 2011: 100 (85 at this point last year)