The Raptor

The Raptor is our local ornithological expert so, whenever I get a lucky shot like this one, it's emailed to him for his opinion.

"Definitely a sparrow hawk," came the rapid reply. "Not sure if it's a male or female, but I'd go with female due to the lighter body. The books have the male with a slightly orangey under body, while the female is paler."

Then, today, I get another email. "On my walk with Callan this morning I came across a pair of redpoll. Now don't ask if they were lesser or common but they were a male and a female. And I had my first sighting of a swallow at 0920 on Friday 10th April. They do arrive from April but I think this is a wee bit early for us. All these sightings were between the cattle grid and the silage bails along the main road."

The Raptor has a wonderful camera, but there was no accompanying picture of either redpolls or swallows. I've even given him a memory stick to make it easy for him to send them.  So I don't think either redpolls or swallows count until we've seen a picture.

All we've seen, beside a high-flying sparrow hawk, is swans heading north and this, our resident song thrush, who is now singing beautifully from the tops of local trees.