7th - 14th May

With a free day on Saturday 7th, Stephen and I headed for an early seawatch at Dunge, with the promise of Pom Skuas, after the large numbers from the previous day.........The reality was not quite what was hoped for, 3 and a bit hours later the highlights turned out to be a couple of WHIMBREL and a BLACK TERN. There was a Skua, I thought it looked reasonably heavy but we couldn't see any 'spoons' so ended up going down as Artic. We stopped quickly at the end of Kerton Road and found the reported WHINCHAT and heard a LESSER WHITETHROAT. So onto the reserve and a walk round the circuit was fairly quiet but still, lots of SEDGE were singing a BITTERN was seen from the ramp as were the first 2 HOBBIES of the year for me. BEARDED TITS 'pinged' and a GREENSHANK called as it flew high WNW.
A change of scenery took us to Rye Harbour a bit of an old favourite. Timing was ok with the high tide only just receding, There were plenty of birds including a good number of 'tundra' RINGED PLOVERS. Other waders included DUNLIN, SANDERLING, WHIMBREL, AVOCET, BAR TAILED GODWITS and a couple of nice summer GREY PLOVER. Three WHEATEAR were also seen and best of all good numbers LITTLE TERNS hopefully on the road to some sort of recovery here. Still with plenty of time we headed back to Dunge, an unsuccessful search for Grizzled Skipper was followed by our final stop of the day at Arc Pits, we headed towards the Water Tower and found our only new grounded migrants of the day a smart male COMMON REDSTART and a SPOT FLY. On the way home I added HOUSE SPARROW to patch list!

Sunday morning started cool and back the local on patch almost the first bird seen was a WHIMBREL flying up from the edge of one of the lakes, great start. There were a few SWALLOW, SWIFT and HOUSE MARTIN, a CUCKOO called for most of the time I was there and was seen briefly and REED WARBLERS were constantly in earshot. As I approached the lower lake a I picked up a bird prey instantly recognisable as RED KITE, new for the year and for the patch! it got lower and lower then disappeared. A few minutes later it re-appeared and headed straight towards me, pretty much circled directly over head and drifted off north towards Maidstone. Yet another year tick was added when as I headed back to the car and a TURTLE DOVE called from near the car park. During the the week a couple of patch visits produced 2 OYSTERCATCHERS, REDSHANK and COMMON SANDPIPER.

With chores to do today I thought a quick patch visit would be the extent of my birding but I did better than expected so chanced my arm with a trip to Abberton Reservoir in Essex which was rewarded with long views, if not close views of the FRANKLINS GULL that had been present for the last few days, a new bird for me anywhere in the world, there were good numbers terns which included 4 BLACK TERNS. This was my first visit to Abberton, it was really nice and took only an hour and twenty or so to get to, also met a good guy from Norfolk who kindly bought me tea as I rang him to say the Franklins was showing, thanks Dave and really nice to talk to you and share a few birding stories :-)  Random pictures from the week follow.......

Sedge Warbler

Reed Bunting

Small Copper

Red Kite - checking me out!

Common Tern - Abberton Reservoir

Mute Swans