Two good birds in two days

Tuesday, while digging a vegetable patch to put my broad beans in when this snow disappears, down at my allotment at St Annes, I was enjoying the sound of lots of birds in song. The weather was marginally better than it has been recently, even with a bit of sunshine, so Greenfinches, Thrushes and other birds were belting out their songs. There was, as usual, the constant chatter of magpies and crows but at one point I thought I heard something a little unusual, a Raven. I passed it off as my imagination and kept on digging. Then a while later, while eating my lunch, I heard it again, as clear as day, calling from within Coppice Park, only a couple of hundred metres away. That was the last time i heard it throughout the day, but i'll be keeping an eye out from now on! This is the closest to the city centre i've heard a Raven and only the 3rd or 4th time i've recorded one in notts. They seem to be becoming more regular though so we'll see what happens.

The next day I noticed there had been some records of Short-eared and Barn Owls at the Hook, next to the Trent on Lady Bay. This is a stone's throw from Michelle's in bridgford so it seemed ridiculous not to go check it out. I have seen Barn Owl here once before, 2 years ago, around the same time of year, but Short-eared owl remained a long desired gap in my life list! I cycled down at around 5.15 and biked up and down the river path when at around 5.40 I noticed the Short Eared Owl hunting over in the distance in the large wet meadow next to the Sailing Club. Amazing. It quartered the fields for around ten minutes but with approaching dog walkers I knew it wouldn't stick around. It didn't, the dogs got within a couple of hundred metres and the owl disappeared behind the trees not to be seen again. I was really pleased though to see such an amazing bird so close to home, and it has been a target of mine for some time! I went down the next day to see if I could get a photo but it didnt appear sadly, probably due to the wind being quite strong that evening.