On to Welbeck

Welbeck Raptor Watchpoint was just five miles up the road from Budby Common so I decided to call in for a bit in the hope that I might be able to see a honey buzzard for which the site is well known. It didn't seem the perfect day for weather and none had been reported for about five days, so I thought it was a longshot but one worth taking since I was in the area, and especially since there was a big traffic jam reported on my route home. I figured that I'd rather spend two or three hours watching raptors than parked on the motorway.

In the past I've spent hours at raptor watchpoints with generally disappointing results and it was a slow start today. However, after about 30 minutes a few buzzards started soaring and then a couple of red kites appeared. Even better, a local birder then turned up and gave me the happy news that even though honey buzzards hadn't been reported for five days, he had seen one from here just yesterday!

Over the course of the next couple of hours we did pretty well, apart from the kites and common buzzards we also saw hobby, sparrowhawk and kestrel. Finally I was scanning over some pine trees in the mid-distance and spotted a large raptor which looked vaguely common buzzard like but with a longish tail and longer, slimmer wings. It was also very pale on the body and the underwing and was clearly a honey buzzard. At that distance it had a very black and white appearance with the dark carpal patches and the white body in particular standing out. We watched it soaring around for a minute until a common buzzard attacked it and the honey buzzard dropped down behind the trees and was gone.