It seems to me that we spend a great deal of our time either looking at features at ground level or just above or doing seawatches. Has anybody ever concentrated on doing "skywatches". I ask this because I only saw my first Golden Eagle (years ago) on Applecross by lying on my back in the (dry) heather and looking straight upwards. I have noticed that where I live it is all too easy to just look at the trees and hedges around (there lots of them) and not looking straight upwards. It appears particularly useful for spotting raptors and high flying geese and gulls. We see buzzards here quite often and some at a considerable height, my sighting of a red kite last year was whilst on the top of the church tower looking up at a new flagpole halyard we had just fitted, and the pink foots this morning were spotted whilst looking skywards at an A-WACS flying over. It seems it would be an ideal activity on a warm lazy day when you can lay on the lawn, sitting up only to sip that wine etc.
Any comments or experiences on this?Regards
David
The late great Miles Hopper once said to me that if you lay on the ground anywhere in Lincolnshire and look to the sky you can guarantee that within 5 minutes you will see a raptor! 
