A Brief Trip to Lapland!

With some sun forecast and a few hours available I made a visit over to Reculver this morning where I started off at 7am at Shuart. I parked up and sat in the car overlooking the edge of some woodland and not long later, I saw the first of 2 Woodcock as they flew into roost. As I left I noted 1 Little Owl getting blown around in a tree and my drive back over to Reculver produced quite a few Blackbird with lesser numbers of Song Thrush and 1 Mistle Thrush in the roads. After parking up at Reculver I walked up to the towers where I was faced with a biting NE wind, I soon had tears in my eyes and couldn't see much. Rather than walk down the seawall, I opted for the shelter of the towers and spent an hour here watching the birds go by. There were plenty of Black headed and Herring Gulls flying by with a few Common and Great black backed Gull noted too but none of the hoped for rarer gulls. Birds I noted were 1 Kestrel, c280 Dark bellied Brent Geese, 1 Pale bellied Brent Goose, 1 male Eider flew east and provided me with a distant record shot, 10 Sanderling and 4 Oystercatcher.

Male Eider

I then opted for some shelter from the wind so drove inland and took a walk down West Brook Valley in the sunshine which produced 1 Grey Wagtail, 1 Woodcock, 3 Goldcrest, 6 Chiffchaff, 1 Common Buzzard, 1 Sparrowhawk, 1 Teal, 1 Kestrel and c10 Long tailed Tit. As I walked back to the car I received a text from Chris Hindle alerting me to a Lapland Bunting at Coldharbour that he had found. I was soon back in the car and arrived on site to search. I walked up to the slope at Coldharbour and soon found the Lapland Bunting feeding on the path but no sooner had I took the camera out of the bag for some shots when some bikes appeared and cycled straight past it flushing it where I watched as it circled the area and appeared to land in the field east of Coldharbour. No shots unfortunately but nice to catch up with this winter species, albeit a brief encounter. As I walked back to the car I noted c400 dark bellied Brent Geese, 4 Reed Bunting, 1 Stonechat, c60 Fieldfare, c20 Redwing and 1 Marsh Harrier. Despite the cold wind, a nice session with a few good birds seen. Hopefully another visit before the year ends!