Short-eared Owl Dozen.

A last minute decision today took myself and Pete back up The Burgh to watch the Short-eared Owls again. It was decided that it was too smoky from the Newhaven factory fire for Tide Mills!!

It was quite a bit quieter at The Burgh today with only a few Red Kites flying. This was until I saw an owl in the distance. Looking through the binoculars I saw it was 3 owls together, I then panned a little left to see more, then even further left and there were yet more. In total there were 12 Short-eared Owls flying together. Unfortunately after they had drifted out of sight there was only one more brief sighting of an owl. This was surprising with so many about. Perhaps they have found a different area to hunt. We waited until it was nearly dark to no avail, other watchers also had a disappointing evening with only one distant singleton seen. The Red Kites did improve in numbers late in the afternoon but were still well down on last week.

Red Kite in the late afternoon sun.