Short ears

We decided we needed a break from house hunting today so we went down to Chidham and did a circular walk with a pub lunch. As we were walking past some fields I caught sight of what at first I thought was a buzzard. Seeing it fly across I revised my opinion to it being a marsh harrier but, when it flew down and landed on the ground, I zoomed in with my bridge camera and thought it looked more like an owl.

After Mr DA and I had snatched a couple of shots, the bird flew off and a woman came by and asked if we’d got any photos as she’d seen it the other day and hadn’t had a good enough view to ID it.

It transpired she was the landlady of the pub we were going go to for lunch and later, when we were sitting in the beer garden, she came and found us to let us know she’d looked the bird up and found out it was a short-eared owl - a conclusion we’d just reached ourselves, followed a bit of googling!