Friday August 7th

A Gorge Drama this morning. A warm, misty blue sky morning, the river was very low, exposing rocks on the river bed, with a rapid out-going flow, and with many, many birds exploring the mud. A Cormorant was sitting on the mud just the the right of Sea Walls, it scarcely moved during all of my visit, eventually it went over to one of the sets of rocks. The Cormorant was joined by a couple of Redshank, they probed the mud, and flew on, working their way down river. Then on the other side of the Sea Walls cliff a heron was sitting on the mud. By the Peregrine Watch there were three Peregrines, flying and then perching over in the quarry opposite, one in the banana tree, two down by the Raven's nest. I looked through a x30 telescope to see these, this showed them to be the two adults and one youngster. The return of the Ravens set them flying around the quarry, buzzing the Ravens, and getting very agitated. They retreated over to the cliff underneath us. I wondered whether they had a catch stashed at the Ravens nest? It could explain why the Ravens went back to the nest the other day, and why they were so interested today. Three Peregrines are no match for a couple of Ravens, at least not when on the ground! A very large group of gulls (100+), Common, Black Headed, and Herring, with juvenile Black Backed Gulls were swept down river by a very strong current. Again there must have been something to feed on since there was interest from a number of crows who were flying low over the water. Add to these a Buzzard that I saw over towards Avonmouth. Finally the Roe deer were over in the right hand quarry, a large deer moved into the trees, another remained almost invisible and behind a small birch tree.