A Reculver Red Rump!

I had intended to get up quite early this morning and do the rounds at Reculver but after waking up surprisingly late, I thought I would stay in and do some house chores. The girls needed dropping at clubs etc during the morning and as I was changing the duvet covers mid morning, I heard my phone go off down stairs. I asked Poppy who it was and she said "you have a message from Matt Hindle". Normally a message from Matt is good news and this was no different for when I opened up the message it alerted me to Red Rumped Swallow that he, Chris and Anne Hindle had just found south of Reculver Towers. The duvet was instantly left and I was in panic mode as not only was this a great bird anyway but also a Reculver patch tick.. I quickly said my goodbyes after grabbing the camera, binoculars and coat and was soon travelling down the Thanet Way to the area. I arrived not surprisingly quite quickly and although it was very dull with quite heavy cloud, I soon could see the Hindle family watching a group of hirundines. I joined them and very soon after, there it was in all it fantastic glory flying around with groups of Swallow, House and Sand Martins. After getting some nice views through the binoculars noting all the features, I thought I had better try and capture a photo of the occasion, easier said than done as like most will know, hirundines are not the slowest movers! I took a few images, a lot being out of focus but the odd one remained in focus and showed the features nicely, it was just a shame that the clouds were quite heavy and didn't give me a nice background colour.

Red Rumped Swallow

After flying around for some time and more nice views, the clouds started to break which typically meant that the hirundine flock including the Red Rumped Swallow moved off towards Reculver Towers where eventually it was lost to view. What was probably the same bird was seen a little later flying west past Bishopstone with a few hirundines. Also noted here was 1 Turtle Dove 'purring' away, 1 Common Buzzard, 1 Sparrowhawk, a few Chiffchaff and Blackcap, 3 Skylark and 1 Grey Heron. A superb bird and great to catch up with this rare Reculver bird and add it to my ever growing Reculver patch list. I will have to find out what i'm on now for the area.

Red Rumped Swallow