Soaked Sunday!

The weather forecast did not look good today at all with heavy rain and strong winds forecast but I hoped that a few birds would be grounded in the Reculver area. I left home at 6.30am where it was already starting to rain and drove over to Chambers Wall where the plan was to leave my car there, get picked up by Julian and drive over to the towers and walk the seawall back to Chambers Wall where the car would be waiting. After parking up we walked the caravan bushes where the rain was now starting to fall much heavier, this was the beginning of what can only be described as one of the most wet sessions I have done in a long while. We both got totally soaked through and the binoculars were almost useless as the rain was so torrential at times, you couldn't look through them. Despite this we saw a few birds which included 4 Brambling, 2 Sparrowhawk, 7 Chiffchaff, 4 Goldcrest, 1 Firecrest showed nicely in the caravan bushes, the photo below being taken a couple of years ago.

Firecrest

There were 2 Blackcap, 1 Black Redstart shared the rocks with 1 Wheatear, 2 Rock Pipit and 1 Pied Wagtail. Walking down the seawall we saw 17 Wigeon, 1 Merlin, 1 Dunlin, c30 Golden Plover, 1 Grey Heron, 1 Bar tailed Godwit, 15 Redshank, 8 Meadow Pipit, 1 Kingfisher, 6 Linnet and near the car at long last we noted c15 Fieldfare and 5 Skylark. We couldn't wait until we got to the car and after pouring out the wet wellies, literally, we made our way back home for some well deserved tea and breakfast. One more week at work until I have 2 weeks off, hopefully this will coincide with some good weather and lots of birds in the Reculver area.