An unexpected find....

Late afternoon on Monday the 11th I was going out to check some owl boxes with my buddy Paul Riddle; Paul was checking a couple of boxes on one of our sites in South Leicestershire, when he was called on his phone by another land owner in the same area, saying he had a strange bird in a ploughed field, which he thought was a Crane, so Paul headed over and went with the land owner to investigate; on seeing the bird, Paul called me and said he was looking at a White Stork! For a minute, I thought he was joking, but he sounded quite serious so I headed over to where he was, and it wasn't long before we both stood there looking at the White Stork. There were no rings on it, and it looked fully winged - it looked to be the real deal - it ws just like the loads of White Stork I've seen in Spain!  The land owner said we could take our vehicle into the field, and as the bird was taking no notice of the tractor and harrowing machine, we did just that. The bird was  busily feeding, but getting closer to us all the while; we just sat there in the vehicle watching it, and eventually got some decent images. After probably an hour or so, the bird flew off high to the west

                                                      Feeding on worms

                                              Looking for its' next morsel

Paul and I have spent hundreds of hours making and erecting boxes and checking them year in year out, and we see loads of different birds and wild life - but to see a White Stork on one of our estates was just amazing! Just goes to show what birds are out there in the middle of nowhere! Many thanks to land owner who brought it to our attention, as he really could have said nothing about it. Sadly though, he did not want hoards of people on his land - even with Pauls' powers of persuasion - he was not going to budge on the matter -it wasn't for the want of us trying, but in the end,you have to respect the estate owner's wishes, which is why we were unable to put the news out for other birders.
As always thanks stopping by