Osprey! - 14.9.11

On attempting to do my lunch for work this morning I realised that the fridge freezer had died and pretty much all the food in it had de-frosted aswell! All we saved were 2 Lamb joints and my House Sparrow that I found dead in Norfolk last time I was there! (It now resides in the emergency freezer in the shed!). Anyway back to birding, this meant having to take at least half a day off from work to clear all the food and go shopping for another one. After spending just under £400 on a new one I decided to have the whole day off. So with a couple of spare hours I popped over to Hilfield Reservoir again in the hope of a storm blown bird. Unsurprisingly I drew a blank so I walked round to the hide and spent an hour in there. I was just scanning the 20-30 gulls on the water when they suddenly all took off. Thinking it might be the Buzzard i'd heard 5 minutes before I scanned the skies to see 2 birds over the water. 1 was a LBB Gull and the other was an Osprey!! I got it in the scope and watched it circle over the reservoir hoping that it'd spot a fish and plunge in after it but the attention of the gulls put it off and it flew off SE possibly going towards Aldenham Reservoir? This was only my 2nd Osprey in Herts, the last being back in 2005. 2 minutes later a Hobby flew in over the hide and started hunting dragonflies over the SE bay. Back on the dam around 30 Swallow flew through and c.25 Meadow Pipits flew off the dam and headed W.

Mmmmmm I can smell the lamb cooking!!