Not to panic, I haven't been out all night wandering around Reculver taking drugs, it refers to a text message I received this morning from Chris Hindle alerting me to a Reculver Mega, a Stone Curlew. I was happily sitting indoors having breakfast when Chris text about the bird and said that it was present on the ridge at Coldharbour and as far as he knew, it was still there. I was dressed like a bullet and after grapping the binoculars and camera I was out driving sensibly down the Thanet Way to Chambers Wall where a few minutes later I arrived. I made my way to the seawall and trying to get the camera out and get ready I noticed a man and his 3 dogs walking in the direction of the ridge and a few cyclists along the seawall making their way in that general direction. I was soon scanning the ridge and on my first attempt drew a blank and thought it had probably moved on but on my second scan, I noticed a head sticking out from behind some vegetation and there it was, a STONE CURLEW. At this point it immediately took off as the cyclist passed and flew inland towards Chambers Wall crossing and appeared to land. I took a number of shots but having had the settings set for dragonflies yesterday, they were completely wrong for ariel shots, add to this that I had completely forgotten to put on the 1.4 converter and I had made a complete mess up of the situation...... or had I.
Stone Curlew
The chances of me connecting with this bird were quite slim due to the cyclists, joggers and dog walkers but I made it, and despite some not good shots I even managed a couple of shots of the 3rd ever record for Reculver.
Stone Curlew
If you had told me this when I woke up this morning I would happily have taking these odds to see such a good bird for Kent and Reculver. As I walked back skipping I met Chidders who had arrived just in time to see it fly from a field and fly off high towards Thanet Earth. Whilst back at the car we added 1 Marsh Harrier and 1 Common Buzzard. Many thanks to Chris for the call this morning and some better shots can be seen on his Blog: www.reculverbirding.blogspot.com
Well done Marc, great bird to get , still need that one for Kent myself
ReplyDeleteNice bird to see Marc, you're photo exploits this morning sounds like the sort of thing I do! :-)
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