Welbeck

As my dad had a few days off work, we'd planned a morning's birding at Welbeck, where an Osprey had been reported frequently over the past two weeks, along with a Honey Buzzard and a Hobby. Arriving at my place just after 5:30am, we set off to get to Welbeck about 50 minutes later. The main birding spot is known as the Raptor Watchpoint, but we weren't exactly sure where that was. Previously, my parent's had been parked up at a layby here where feeding cups adorn the fence posts, attracting plenty of finches, tits, and the occasional Nuthatch. The layby was our obvious guess, as it's the closest you can get to the lake, but it's quite low down and didn't really fit our idea of a "watchpoint".

As we pulled up the mist was clearing over the lake, and dad had seen something that looked a bit like a large gull flying over the water to the right. As it doubled back I grabbed our bins in a hurry - it was the Osprey! We both got onto the bird in time before it disappeared to the western edge of the lake, but our best views were without the bins when it flew right past us. We waited for it to come back for the next 30 minutes or so, but without any luck. A Grey Heron landed in the nearby field with a large fish, which it downed in one, and we watched the odd Great Crested Grebe amongst the more numerous waterfowl, but there was still no sign of the Osprey.

After looking at the map, we decided to have a drive to the western side of the lake, and give our legs a stretch. The road twisted and turned past several old fashioned lodges and a war memorial, up hill, and into a village. The war memorial had been mentioned in one of the recent reports, so it was our turn to double back and check it out. Just before we got there, we had a brief glimpse of a probable Hobby flying through in front of us - everything looked good in terms of size, shape, and behaviour, but it was the briefest of views and no plumage detail was seen. The area where it was was full of hirundines passing through the trees, and parking up at the memorial, we got out in the hope of sighting it again. No sign of a Hobby - whatever it was, was long gone, but I did get onto my second lifer of the day. A Spotted Flycatcher was in a large tree next to the memorial, and repeatedly looping in flight from a favoured perch, hunting its prey.

Moving on to our walk, we passed someone setting up their scope at the side of the road further up the hill - something to note for later. The walk was one my dad had done previously - not very long, but covering a few types of habitat. First off was some farmland, which produced a pair of Red-legged Partridge, a Lesser Whitethroat, and plenty of Linnet. As we entered the woodland, a juvenile buzzard was calling from somewhere, and walking around to the far side of the lake, dad got onto it, calling from an exposed perched in an old tree. Before it took off, we'd confirmed it as a Common Buzzard, so no joy with the honey!

Heading back I noted an odd looking duck in the lake. Its plumage was like that of a female tufty, but it had an overly long neck - I've since put it down as probable Mallard in moult (seems likely for the time of year) or a yuck duck. At the gates to the Welbeck estate, I had a Nuthatch up in one tree, whilst we heard increasingly-closer calls from a buzzard. We had a bit of fun with the security guy, who insisted on telling us we were on private land, when we were clearly on the footpath side of the gate - it must be a dull job. Anyway, the buzzard carried on calling ovehead as we walked back, but we didn't connect with it again for a while. As we did it was to our enjoyment that there were two, and the both passed right over us, giving good enough views through the clearings to confirm two juvenile Common Buzzard. Heading back over the farmland also produced a Common Whitethroat - the first I've seen in over a month!

We drove back to see that another birder had now joined the one we'd seen previously, so we pulled up to ask what was going on. It turned out that this spot was the infamous "Raptor Watchpoint", so thanks to the two guys from South Yorkshire for clearing that up for us. They'd had the Osprey too, and we all saw a few more Common Buzzard, but no sign of the honey. We didn't have time to stick around, and it was pretty clear that we'd struggle from this spot without a scope of our own, so we thanked them and moved on back to the layby, where a local birding couple were looking out from their car. We had no further joy with the Osprey, and they'd not seen it either, but we had a nice chat with them and added a pair of Marsh Tit (on the nearby feeder cups) to the day list. That was our rather productive morning at Welbeck done, before heading on to my local patch for a late morning walk.