A return to Roydon Common

On the 8th December, I returned to Roydon Common, after an absence of exactly one year. The hen harriers had returned by this stage, so I was looking forward to seeing them, especially seeing them in better circumstances than last time. That set quite a high plank.

the conditions of the road were icy, so I cycled at a slower speed than usual. In two areas there was ice all over a highway. I arrived at Roydon Common soon after and began waiting. The first bird I saw was a merlin. A tiny, compact falcon travelling at very high speed over the reserve quite a bit distant. I was unable to take photos of it, despite trying. It seems to have been a small male, with a reddish underside. 

soaring nearby were two absolutely splendid red kites. 

Once, this was the rarest raptor in the UK, but they have made a massive resurgence thanks to reintroductions, and now I have started seeing them in places I haven't encountered them before in. The conditions were extremely cold, and a strong wind was not helping with that, either. After a buzzard flew overhead, there was a distinct lull in bird activity until 15:00 in the evening. The earliest I have seen hen harriers on this reserve was 14:30, and the latest was around 15:40. You never know when they will turn up, especially the males, regarded as notoriously unreliable in that respect. 

The first harrier came in soon, flying almost overhead. It was a young marsh harrier, which receded into the distance. There has been an unusually small amount of these seen during this trip. Soon after, another harrier appeared in the distance. This was a ringtail hen harrier, which dropped in to roost in its usual place, exactly the same as last year, I thought. 

Soon after, the first male appeared, flying very low over the ground and perching in an area of exposed grass. It looked beautiful, silvery-grey in the distance, contrasting enormously with the warm chocolate-brown of the female which was now perching somewhere. It was rapidly joined by a second male. They perched together in the same area, one sitting on a mound of peat and the other in some grass nearby. the view was amazing and close. I began taking photos, expecting them to fly off any second and ruin it for me. However, they stayed put. The blog's image compression decimated the quality of the image, it looks much nicer on file. 

I took more photos, zooming in as far as I could. I was able to see features I would never have been able to see before, even with my main camera's zoom. One seems to have been an adult male, the one on the mound, and the other a younger male, but in almost the same plumage. they remained at rest, just rotating their heads at times.

I was astonished they hadn't flown off yet. My past experiences dictates that the males especially were wretches who flew off exactly when I wanted to take a photo. These two seemed almost zombified compared to the ones last year. Despite the notorious behaviour of my zoom camera in poor light, I was able to make out their bills and facial features on some photos. 

Eventually, one of them did take off, flapping slowly and lazily a short distance along the ground to perch in a bush. Although the bush seemed more distant than its previous position, the views I got were even better from this place than in the previous area. People nearby were extremely surprised by this. 

I didn't even wait for them to start roosting. I left when the cold really began to bite. I didn't even wait for any merlins to arrive this time, remembering last year a female arrived in near complete darkness, even though I almost took a photo of it. However, as I was cycling just outside the reserve back to Kings Lynn, an unmistakeable merlin flew directly overhead, a tiny fast falcon going straight towards Roydon Common