Sutton Bingham - Fri 26 May

I'd not had the chance to visit the patch much over the last week so I made the effort to pop up during my lunch break today and arrived at the northern causeway soon after 1pm. I thought I'd scan the area south of West Pool towards Coker Wood as Dave had seen a couple of Hobbies over in that direction yesterday. Scanning the skies I located a large raptor and immediately thought "that's different". Over the next minute or two it drifted closer to me and after getting a good look through the binoculars I grabbed my scope to try and get more detail. I soon had it in the scope and my initial thoughts were confirmed...it was a Honey Buzzard! I watched it for the next five minutes until it finally drifted away to the east and was lost to view. Fortunately I had enough time to clinch the identification, the constant soaring on drooped wings certainly helped along with the protruding head and long tail. I've seen plenty of Honey Buzzards over the years, including migrating flocks of thousands in southern Spain, but this is only my third for Sutton Bingham. I moved down the arm to see if I could relocate the bird but was unable to, however, another quality raptor as a Hobby flew north up the arm affording some excellent views. Apart from these two awesome birds of prey the only other bird of note was a singing Reed Warbler near the small jetty at the end of the northern causeway.

Sutton Bingham year list for 2023 now at 104 species.