Rare Rewards at Reculver!

After yesterdays rush to Reculver to see the male Desert Wheatear I wanted to return this morning in hopefully better conditions and see if I could improve upon yesterdays shots, surely not a hard challenge to beat! I arrived at 7am and made my way to the area where almost straight away I could see the male Desert Wheatear sitting on the seawall at quite close range. The sun had not even come up yet and I joined a few birders where we watched the little beauty as it looked for food. Rather than the sun appear, clouds soon moved in from the south and with that a heavy shower arrived sending everyone for shelter, which at Reculver there is not much. I decided to stay on and no long after the rain stopped and it showed signs of brightening up. With this the Wheatear become  more active and with just me and the bird I spent about 20 minutes watching and photographing it from close range. Although the sun had not quite arrived yet I managed to get a few pleasing efforts.

Male Desert Wheatear

At times it flew to within a metre or so of me and I was able to see what a beauty this bird is. After quickly leaving the area to drop my wife and kids off at karate, not before seeing Matt Hindle who was watching a Great Northern Diver offshore, I returned to the area and met up with a good number of local birders who it was nice to catch up with again. The Wheatear had moved a little east on the rocks and I settled in with others and was treated to superb views and plenty of photographic opportunities.

Male Desert Wheatear

I think I must have taken nearly 300 shots in not a lot of time, such was the showy nature of the bird. I will no doubt post more of the Desert Wheatear later in the week as I have a few to share. I thought I would give my shutter button finger a rest and walked east with Barry Wright where we wanted to catch up with the Shorelark where after a short walk we soon connected with this Reculver specialty. Not quite as showy as the Wheatear I managed along with others some reasonable attemtps which I will post in the next few days. There seemed to be birders everywhere this morning along the seawall and walking back in a very strong wind I saw the Great Northern Diver again in flight, 2 Little Egret, 1 Stonechat, c400 Brent Geese, c20 Sanderling, 1 Sparrowhawk and 1 Kestrel. A superb morning on the patch with some top quality birds to see and photograph, and nice to catch up with some of the Kent boys. All those mornings walked down the seawall without seeing much were very much rewarded today.

Male Desert Wheatear