The Ticks Keep Coming!

Although it was quite blustery this morning when I left home at 5.15am I thought I would have a drive around and look for Owls and hopefully hear a Nightingale. With a few arriving in Kent yesterday and my first Nightingale heard on this date last year I thought I would give it a listen. There are only a few areas suitable for Nightingale in the Reculver area so after pulling up I put my ears to the test. The dawn chorus was in full swing but with the wind blowing hard and a noisy Wren singing right by the car, it was quite hard to hear at any distance. However I am pretty sure I heard a few notes from a Nightingale in the distance but failed to hear it properly to be completely happy. Hopefully if the wind drops later I will return to the area after dark and see if there is indeed a Nightingale singing, hopefully an update later on this. After this I had a quick drive around and noted 1 Little Owl, 1 Barn Owl and 3 Red legged Partridge. I then met up with Julian at the towers where in a strong wind we walked on down to Coldharbour before walking inland to Chambers Wall where we met Mike. A good look at the bushes here for migrants and then we returned back the way we had come. The sun never really made it through unlike this afternoon and it even rained briefly. However a good range of species were noted including 7 Chiffchaff, 3 Green Woodpecker, 8 Redwing, 1 Fieldfare, 18 Swallow west, 1 Black Redstart around the towers, 2 Little Egret, 4 male Wheatear on the rocks, 10 Turnstone, 4 Yellow Wagtail, 7 Ringed Plover, 7 Oystercatcher and the first of 2 Sedge Warbler (132) could be heard singing from the reeds alongside the seawall.

Wheatear

There were 12 Redshank, 1 Bar tailed Godwit, 3 Shelduck, 5 Reed Bunting, 2 White Wagtail, 1 Green Sandpiper, 4 Canada Geese flew west at sea, 15 Meadow Pipit, 1 Curlew, 2 Shoveler and at Coldharbour there was a newly arrived Whitethroat (133) in the bushes. Nothing new was found around the bushes but walking back we saw 1 House Martin west, 1 Sparrowhawk, 2 Brent Geese, 3 Sandwich Tern and 3 Sand Martin ended another productive few hours. The dreaded work tomorrow but hopefully a few trips can be made in the week to keep the spirits up!