Tit-tastic Day at Reculver!

With cloudy skies and light winds forecast for today, I arrived at Shuart at 8am where I repeated the loop from yesterday to see how many species could be seen. I managed to see or hear 71 species without much bother which was a good total I think considering there were again a few easy species to see but I did manage a bit of quality in there again. It wasn't long until I heard the Yellow browed Warbler calling again from the farm wood and the first of 6 Brambling called as it flew over. I spent some time around the wood checking all the species and I was really pleased to connect with 2 'continental' Coal Tit in the conifers which showed quite well and were quite vocal. I have only seen this species once before at Reculver on the 21st April 2009 so it was great to get nice views of this scarce Reculver bird. There was no light whatsoever looking into the farm wood but I tried for a couple of photos and ended up with a few passable photos. I was just happy to see and obtain my first photos of this species on the patch.

'Continental' Coal Tit

There had been a Great Grey Shrike seen yesterday in the area and after speaking to Chris Hindle who had just seen it, I decided to go and have a look. I arrived in the area not long after but there was no sign of the Shrike and I didn't see it all day but compensation was more than made up when I saw 2 Dartford Warblers together in the bushes near the railway crossing. That's 3 I have found in a week, brilliant. Having completed the walk in 5 hours, birds of note seen included c60 Siskin, c300 Swallow west, c28 House Martin west, 6 Cetti's Warbler, 3 Stonechat, 2 Kingfisher, 1 Greylag Goose, 1 Barnacle Goose of suspect origin I suspect flying west and then north, 1 Peregrine, 5 Long tailed Tit, 1 Marsh Harrier, 2 Common Buzzard, 1 Wheatear, 3 Chiffchaff, 1 Blackcap and 1 Rock Pipit. There were c70 Goldfinch, c60 Chaffinch, 3 Lesser Redpoll, 1 Little Egret, 1 Red legged Partridge and Bearded Tits heard 'pinging' in the reeds at Coldharbour. Its been a great weeks birding with some good birds seen and a few nice photos. Another week off next week but the rest of the family are also on holiday now so I suspect I will only get out a few times during the week but hopefully there will be some more good birds to be seen in the area.

Wheatear