Jump Jet

Beautiful first thing this morning, but by 3pm the promised band of wet weather had arrived, and I think, is probably due to stay with us for a few days now.  

I was so pleased to have managed to finally find some bearded tits yesterday (see yesterday's entry), as I've been on the lookout for them for ages.  At this time of year you tend to see them in ones and twos rather than the little flocks you get in the Autumn, so they're really quite hard to spot, buried in the reeds.  Previously I've only ever seen one and it was so deep in the reeds it wasn't photographable.  Otherwise, whenever I've spotted a small bird on the reeds its ended up being something like a reed bunting or a blue tit/great tit.

I'm really hoping that today's male Marsh Harrier sticks to a nice sensible diet of moorhens and similar and leaves the bearded tits unmolested.  He surprised me, sweeping up low over the tops of the reeds and getting to proper frame filling distance, which is a bit of a novelty with birds of prey in the wild.