Orkney SEO's

  We're now at the end of our holiday to the west side of Orkney and for me what a week it's been. As I mentioned previously it was hh and seo's that I particularly wanted to see and I haven't been disappointed. I have now lost count how many of both species I have seen - certainly between 20 and 30 sightings of each species. In the 2010 Orkney bird report it suggests there were around 80 occupied territories for Hen Harrier and around 35 pairs of SEO's. Each morning I have been getting up and out between 5 and 6am and driving over Birsay Moor to the west of Skail.  When flying in to a light breeze, both species remind me of a balsa wood glider that I had as a child that would twist and turn in the air.  During the holiday, I was lucky enough to see Hen Harriers every day and SEO's most days.

  I soon found out that the best opportunities for sightings was to drive slowly up and down the road over Birsay Moor, stopping for a while in several of the numerous passing places and scanning the surrounding moorland. It wasn't practical to just wait in one place as the birds were far roaming in their hunt for prey and also due to the sensitivity of the species concerned, tramping over the moorland was also out of the question.  By using this first method, often, after only 10 or 15 minutes, I'd get a sighting and then it was a case of seeing which direction it was flying and then trying to prejudge when and where - or if - it was going to come close to the road.

  Below are a few pictures of SEO's from the week, not always in the perfect light or perfect conditions but like a lot of things you take what you can get. As I mentioned before, the most practical time for me was to go out from around 5am to 8am (while the others were still in their beds) although this did mean that even though the angle of the sun was good for lighting, I was often viewing the birds in to the sun...................

  These first two were early morning and as you can see were shot straight into the sun. I slowly rolled towards it with the camera out of the car window as it sat on a roadside fence. Just as I was getting in a position with the sun in my favour, a car came roaring past and put the bird up. Both are only cropped at the sides which gives and idea of how close the bird was. On a coupe of the days it was quite windy which as I mentioned in the previous post seemed to ground the owls. I came across the first one as it sat in the sun out of the wind against a peat bank........

The SEO's could be seen down at 'lower' levels as well, often hunting over coastal reed beds and rough grass around the arable fields. This last one was hunting in a roadside field on our last day as we headed back towards Kirkwall ...............

  Robbie