Turtle Dove decoy

This morning I went on a watch to the San Niklaw area with the League Against Cruel Sports, including Bill Oddie. Patrick Barkham also came with us, he's a writer for the Guardian and also the author of Butterfly Isles and Badgerlands, both awesome books.

The bird migration here is still pretty slow, but this morning we saw about 10 Marsh Harriers taking of from the fields and also Kestrels, House Martins, Swifts and Barn Swallows, Yellow Wagtails... So starting to think the birds were finally arriving, but I think our team got lucky as the bird migration records from the other teams were pretty low.

There was some shooting this morning (about 200 shots) though from the shot records from last year this is nothing. But we were happy to be in the right place in full view as the Marsh Harriers left the roost, as they weren't targeting by the hunters in the valley.

Lets see what happens tomorrow...