Just Nice to be Out!

With the dark mornings and evenings not allowing for any real type of birding time at all I was very much looking forward to getting out this morning. The forecast was for light winds and sunshine till late morning with rain moving in later. I was out of the house at 5.45am where I had a drive around the area listening and looking for any Owls etc. I managed to see 1 Little Owl and saw 17 Fieldfare, 2 Redwing and heard a Golden Plover. After parking up the plan was to walk down the seawall and find and photograph the 2 Shorelarks Chris Hindle had found yesterday. They obviously had other plans for despite trying to find them along with a few other birders, they could not be refound. I carried on down the seawall where I then heard some Sparrows flying my way, a look through the bins and a quick shot with the camera confirming they were 6 Tree Sparrows. They flew around a few times and landed on the seawall itself a few times where they fed briefly before the usual bikes scared them off. A bonus bird to see and nice to see in the open on the seawall, just a shame I could not get a little nearer to get a few better efforts.

Tree Sparrows

I was joined a while later by Julian Perry and Phil Parker where we walked on down to Coldharbour and met up with Chris and Anne Hindle for a chat. After moving on we walked slowly around Coldharbour and back west towards the towers. Birds we noted were 1 Grey Wagtail, 2 Kingfisher, 27 Cormorant, c40 Lapwing, 25 Redshank, 2 Little Egret, 2 Ringed Plover, c20 Brent Geese, 27 Mallard, c100 Skylark, 7 Reed Bunting and 1 Marsh Harrier was noted with a nice backdrop of Reculver Towers allowing for a quick photo opportunity.

Marsh Harrier

 There were 10 Sanderling, 1 Grey Heron, 6 Oystercatcher, 6 Turnstone, 8 Grey Plover, 2 Rock Pipit, 1 Cetti's Warbler and 1 Sparrowhawk. Tomorrows weather looks much better and with a good 20mph north west wind predicted, there will hopefully be a few birds moving on the sea early morning.