Contributor
Date
Location
- Age
- Not specified
- Sex
- Not specified
- Behaviors
- Flying
Observation details
At 07:45 I was scanning from the bottom of the North Slope. My attention was brought to the local crows and Lapwings mobbing a bird over Keelham. Hoping for a raptor, I was surprised to see that the bird was in fact a species of Tern, with slender wing structure and long streamers, Sandwich Tern was quickly eliminated, leaving only ‘Commic’ Tern as an option. The bird was mobbed very aggressively by the crows, who routinely grabbed the tern as it attempted to escape. Even when the crows left the Tern alone, it struggled to fly, labouring as it headed west. It would fly in circles slowly loosing altitude, before the crows would return for another attack. It eventually dropped behind the houses just to the south of Denholme, where it presumably pitched into the field and died. Although it is impossible to judge the injures inflicted by the crows from the distance observed, its slow and struggling flight might suggest the bird was already stricken by bird flu, although I have no actual evidence to back up this hypothesis.
Additional species
Technical information
- Model
- Canon EOS R5
- Lens
- RF100-500mm F4.5-7.1 L IS USM
- ISO
- 1250
- Focal length
- 500 mm
- Flash
- Flash did not fire
- f-stop
- f/7.1
- Shutter speed
- 1/640 sec
- Dimensions
- 1001 pixels x 667 pixels
- Original file size
- 43.19 KB