Thursday 27 December 2012

Will It Ever Stop!

With the last few days being very busy with the family and more food and drink than necessary consumed I was given permission to go out this morning and get some exercise. Quite naturally this meant birding! I left home at 6.30am and had a brief stop off at a few locations for Owls but did not hear any. Normally by now I am hearing Long eared Owls but they may be out of ear shot where I park and I am not that keen to go walking into the darkness on my own in the early hours. I eventually ended up parking at a very wet and muddy Chambers Wall where after the light started to pick up I wandered on down to Coldharbour and then west along the seawall and back via the embankment. The rarest sighting this morning was off a round yellowish object which was observed moving up through the sky before being consumed by clouds where it was not seen again all morning. As per usual the clouds soon become darker and the rain started. It seems that every time I go out of late it bloody rains. Wet clothes, wet notebook, wet binoculars and a wet rucksack. Will it give me a break please! back to some birding where I noted c150 Brent Geese, 2 Grey Partridge, 1 Fieldfare, 1 Barn Owl hunting east of Chambers Wall, 2 Skylark, 1 Kestrel, 266 Cormorant flew in from the south, 10 Mute Swan, 21 Lapwing, 2 Greylag Geese and 6 Wigeon. As I walked back along the embankment 4 Waxwing flew over in the gloom and landed in bushes near the railway line crossing. As can be guessed when it is raining and dark skies, they showed very well and would have given me some great photo opportunities. Fed up of getting wet I moved on seeing 1 Great crested Grebe, 12 Oystercatcher, 2 Turnstone, 15 Linnet, 2 Little Grebe, 1 Little Egret, 1 Bearded Tit and 1 Sparrowhawk. Thankfully I made it back to the car before the real heavy stuff arrived. On the way home I called in briefly to Reculver where I soon located 6 Bewick's Swans in flooded fields with Mute Swans. After much swearing the rain eased enough for me to rattle off a few distant record shots of the Swans, always a delight to see on the patch. It was time to go home and dry out everything and maybe pray my next visit will have some sunshine for me to enjoy.

Bewick's Swans

7 comments:

  1. If its any consolation Marc, I feel just as frustrated with this wet weather as you mate! At least you got some birding in today, and a nice Bewick photo thrown in :-)

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  2. Will it?????? Beautiful Bewick's Swans photographs.

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  3. I have only seen the Whoopers this year up at Martin Mere. I am hoping to see some Bewick's soon. From Findlay

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  4. Hola Marc fantastica toma de estos tres cisnes cantores.Un saludo y Feliz año 2013

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  5. Hopefully you get a break from the rain soon, or you just have to continue sitting around, eating and drinking:) The Swans are lovely!!

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