As people drifted off we decided to head down to Keyhaven to look for a flock of Lapland Bunting that had been around in a stubble field for ages, but despite an enjoyable couple of hours hunting amongst the maize bottoms, all we came up with were Reed Bunting, Chaffinch, Pied Wagtail, Starling Skylark and Rock Pipit.
This Rock Pipit was spectacularly obliging
We gave up after a while and headed back to Hordle in the hope of a somewhat larger prize. A rather bigger group of people had gathered in the lay-by in the late afternoon sunshine which was good, more eyes and more banter to pass the time. I'm not sure why I decided that at a particular time any self respecting Eagle would be roosted up, but I did, and we gave up the hunt. Whilst packing up the camera I announced in a loud voice to John that it didn't matter because we would see it on the way home, just to raise a smile amongst the group of watchers.
I always thought John and I had far more than our fair share of luck when we used to go twitching, maybe it was his experience, but this evening it was definitely luck. A couple of miles up the road, along Silver Street I was forced into some creative parking as a huge raptor headed low towards us, gliding right over our heads. Unbelievable. The only unfortunate thing in retrospect was that I didn't have time to even take the camera out, but those untaken images will live long in the memory.
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