Tit Tastic!

With the morning getting lighter of late I was out of the house this morning at 5.45am where I had a drive around the Reculver lanes looking and listening for Owls. A few bits were noted included 2 Little Owls, 1 near Shuart and 1 in the caravan park at Reculver and 2 Red legged Partridge were heard calling. After parking up at Reculver and having a cup of coffee in the car I wandered on down towards Coldharbour in mild but quite cloudy conditions, the sun making an appearance later in the morning. The tide was on the way out and a few birds were moving in to feed on the shoreline. Birds noted this morning were 3 Pheasant, c250 Brent Geese, 3 Curlew, 6 Meadow Pipit including a few displaying males, 2 Pied Wagtail, 10 Mute Swan, 1 Little Egret, 25 Redshank, 95 Oystercatcher, c70 Linnet, 22 Shelduck, 8 Ringed Plover, 13 Grey Plover and 2 Eider offshore. One of the highlights of the morning was adding 2 Red breasted Merganser (107) to the year list as a pair drifted east off Coldharbour but it could not beat the encounter I had with 4 Bearded Tits at Coldharbour. Bearded Tit is a scarce bird at Reculver anyway so to spend c45 minutes photographing these lovely birds from close range was a pleasure. They reacted well to my bad 'pishing' attempts, all except the male who always kept low down in the reeds and did not allow for many shots. Every now and then I take a few shots that even I am happy with and a few of the shots below turned out well today.

Bearded Tit

Other birds noted at Reculver included 27 Mallard, 1 Kingfisher, 1 Skylark, 18 Bar tailed Godwit, 6 Dunlin, 4 Great crested Grebe, 4 Red throated Diver on the sea and 1 Sanderling. ith the sun poking through the clouds I then drove over to Shuart for a bit of raptor watching. The weather was still warming up but I noted 2 MarshHarrier, 1 Common Buzzard, 1 Kestrel, 1 Sparrowhawk, 1 Siskin, 4 Skylark, 1 Great spotted Woodpecker, 1 Green Woodpecker and 2 Red legged and 2 Grey Partridge ended a pleasant session.

   Bearded Tit