Well it’s the last day of leave for Mrs A-B and myself, so we started the day early and arrived at Close Sartfield just before sunrise, at this time of the year, 07:10.

As usual, anything could happen, so this time I was ready, camera in hand!

We saw the first Wallabies in the big meadow, but no Hares this morning, maybe it’s too early? This was soon resolved once at the hide.

Mrs A-B was the first to see them.

[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”50″ gal_title=”Hares at Dawn”]

Whilst watching this animal, two Wallabies appeared, right on the edge of the undergrowth.

[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”51″ gal_title=”Wallabies at Dawn”]

As the sun started to rise above the tree line, we could hear geese, a lot of them. We soon saw a flock of Greylag Geese making their way across the sky.

[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”52″ gal_title=”Greylag Geese”]

It was shortly after this that I saw the first of three Hen Harriers, all females, and it wasn’t long before the duelling began between two of them. It all appeared to start after something, possibly breakfast, had been dropped!

[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”53″ gal_title=”Hen Harriers”]

The aerial ballet carried on for about 5 minutes with several tumbles, talons firmly clamped together, before the dominant one, the bird with missing flight feather, caught a thermal and slowly started to climb up and away.

Returning to the hide on the meadow, we found that two more hares had now appeared and were happily sunning themselves.

[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”56″ gal_title=”Brown Hare in the Sun”]

However it wasn’t long before they were spooked, and managed to throw the dew up in the air as they ran!

[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”57″ gal_title=”Brown Hares on the run”]

It is becoming apparent now that each Hare has differing black marks on the back of their ears. Hopefully, we might be able to start identify them if I can build up a library of ear marks.

Well after all that, it was time to leave a return to normality, but we are looking forward to the next visit soon.