What was looking like a fairly quiet day around the patch today was suddenly brightened up when whilst I was at Trimingham I scanned a large recently ploughed field in the distance where I could see a number of corvids and gulls had gathered and quickly noticed that there were two crows which appeared to be showing light grey backs right at the back of the field.
Naturally thoughts quickly turned to the possibility of them being Hooded Crows, but I was slightly unsure as to whether it was simply a trick of the light due to the distance, so I quickly made my way over to the edge of the field where to my delight I could now see that they were indeed Hooded Crows, and a new patch tick for me into the bargain!
I quickly dashed back to grab my scope just to eliminate any possibility of them being hybrids and to get some record shots of them. Fortunately they were still present on my return and they were watched commuting between the clifftop field and the beach below, occasionally being flushed every now and again as the farmer had appeared and was now spraying the field with some strong smelling bright yellow chemical which I tried my best not to inhale too much of as he passed by!
Whereas they were a fairly regular bird in the county back in the 1980's, Hooded Crows have now become very scarce with just the occasional bird passing through, but which up till now have always eluded me so it was very pleasing to finally catch up with one (or even two) on the patch, and even better that they hung around long enough for some of the locals to catch up with them too.
On the way back a couple of Roe Deer were seen feeding in a field at Sidestrand, with one posing nicely for a photo before it noticed my presence and headed off into the bracken covered slope behind.
