Kestrel Preening

RSPB St Aidans, 12.30 pm, Tuesday: A kestrel lands on the track ahead of us, apparently for a brief bathe in a puddle although by the time I get my binoculars on it, it’s dust-bathing then going through its preening routine for a few minutes.

It seems very relaxed about us standing just twenty yards from it. We chat with a bird watcher as we get back to the centre:

“Was it streaky?” he asks “It’d be a juvenile, they’re more trusting of people, and like all juveniles, they’ll sometimes do silly things.”

Gatekeeper

A male gatekeeper flutters past us, heads for the long grasses alongside the track and immediately gets stuck in, to us, invisible strands of a spider’s web. I feel that I ought to give it a second chance, so I gently extricate it. Free of any strands of silk, I can’t understand why it doesn’t fly off, then I notice that, hidden beneath its left wing, a spider has it firmly in its grasp.

I replace the pair amongst the grasses, leaving the spider to finish its lunch undisturbed.

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