A Few Birds Arriving!

With some decent weather forecast for today and light winds I was out of the house early this morning at 5.15am where I had a drive around the area in the dark looking and listening for any Owls and anything else that wanted to call in the dark. As the light picked up I heard 1 Grey and 1 Red legged Partridge calling and a few Skylark and Golden Plover could be heard in the distance. I then parked up at Chambers Wall where on getting out of the car there was obviously a good number of Chiffchaff around. Throughout the morning I managed to see and hear 48 Chiffchaff, no doubt a lot more as well that went unnoticed. I walked down to Coldharbour before walking east along to Plumpudding Stables where I checked all the bushes before returning back along the seawall. Despite not finding 'that' bird this morning I noted a few species including 4 Grey Partridge, 2 Kestrel, 9 Blackcap, 1 Turtle Dove still around surprisingly, 2 Reed Warbler, 2 Whitethroat, 1 Wigeon, 1 Snipe, 2 Stonechat and 3 Whinchat were together near Coldharbour allowing the first shots of the day.

Whinchat

There were 2 Grey Wagtail west, 2 Pied Wagtail, c10 Meadow Pipit, 7 Teal, 2 Sedge Warbler, c20 Reed Bunting, 1 Rock Pipit west, 2 Marsh Harrier, c80 Linnet, 1 Lesser Whitethroat eventually showed itself in a bush along the seawall where I managed to grab a few quick shots. 

Lesser Whitethroat

Moving on I noted 4 Curlew, 2 Wheatear, 1 Shoveler, 5 Oystercatcher, 9 Swallow, 1 House Martin, 5 Sand Martin, 1 Green Woodpecker, 1 Great spotted Woodpecker, 7 Ringed Plover, 3 Little Egret, 9 Turnstone, 3 Redshank and 1 Kingfisher. A few Yellow browed Warblers are in the north of the country at the moment, hopefully the next week or so will see one or two on the patch!

Lesser Whitethroat