Chiffchaffs & Mining Bees

Lade - 0800hrs - warm, dry, hazy sunshine, light airs - With the cold easterly wind gone it felt quite warm from the off this morning. An overnight fall of Chiffchaffs in the gardens and willows over the pits comprised about 10 singing birds, but precious littel else on the migrant front apart from a furtive Song Thrush and half a dozen raucous Sandwich Terns on the bay. Mipits, Skylarks, Reed Buntings and Cetti`s Warbler all in song and couple of harriers hunting the airport farmland.
ARC - 1300hrs From the causeway road singles of Avocet and Little Egret, 3 Goldeneyes, Wigeons, Shovelers, Shelducks, Oystercatchers and a Curlew.
Burrowes - 1530hrs The Long-staying duck was still viewable from Dennis`s  where a colony of mining bees was actively burrowing into a sandy bank nearby (per CT). A Dartford Warbler was reported from the return trail, while Ruff and Golden Plovers were elsewhere around the reserve. At the point this morning a movement of 1,500 Brents was noteworthy (TG), plus a scattering of Chiffchaffs, Wheatears and Black Redstarts.

                                          Coltsfoot, Lade

                                           Chiffchaff, Lade

                                          Mining Bee, Burrowes - probably Andrena fusipes

There was negative news on two of Dungeness`s long-stayers, with both Great White Egret and Glaucous Gull not been seen for at least one and two weeks respectively.