Scops

This way to the bird!
















The birds first appearance of the night
















A closer inspection of the scrum

To get a good view of this bird you realy needed to be lucky. Flight views were pretty much untickable, and a view ofthe bird in "daylight" was an honour only to be had by a fortunate few. Once the light had gone, it was down to the power of torchlight.... My only view of the bird was when it flew accross the path infront of the house by the Horse Chestnut tree. As flight views go, mine were actually pretty good. So good infact that I could actually see the ear tufts on the bird! a pity it wasn't more cooperative when it was sitting in the tree... Despite returning to the same (relatively open!) tree about 5 times, I failed to see any more than the tail of the bird. By the time I got around to looking through the scope the bird had moved on. Looks like I will have to wait for the next twitchable Scops Owl before I can properly tick it...