It was a nice peaceful morning at Gosforth Park, if you ignore the constant "kars" and "keks" of the Black-headed Gulls, Keith and I were just chewing the fat when the decibel rate increased dramatically. I looked up to see a solitary Jackdaw swoop down across the platform where all the Common Terns and Black-headed Gulls are sitting with 4 of the latter having young. I only managed to get 4 shots as the combined defence by the birds soon saw it off.
I assume that the Jackdaw was just "testing the waters" as surely no sane bird would ever have a serious attempt at trying to pick up a meal from amongst the 40 or so adult birds that were present.
A bit later on though we were still chewing the fat when every bird on the pond lifted, pity my camera wasn't ready as it was a very impressive sight. Keith spotted a distant dot and we had soon identified it although it did not come very close to the pond it was absolute mayhem for 20 seconds. It was very high and just sauntered along then dropped very fast heading over the pond being chased by the inevitable Crows and vanished over the treeline. This was about the closest it came and is cropped to the limit. It headed off in the general direction of Big Waters so a quick call to the new communications setup we have installed in there for just this purpose (mobile in Alan's pocket) to warn him.
He did manage to spot it as it sauntered towards Arcot
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