Lade - 1100hrs - cool, cloudy, drizzle, sw 5 - A circuit of the local patch delivered our first Green Sandpiper of the season on north lake along with a Common Sandpiper on south lake. A few Swifts and House Martins hawked insects over the willow swamp and a Hobby cruised through scattering them skywards. On the sands hundreds of Black-headed Gulls made up the bulk numbers of gulls along with 10 Sandwich Terns, the usual Curlews, Oystercatchers and Ringed Plovers, plus a lone Whimbrel. A Grey Seal was catching flatfish in the surf as the tide ebbed.
ARC - Nothing much of note from Screen hide apart from Little Ringed and Ringed Plovers, Greenshank and Green Sandpiper, plus all the usual eclipse wildfowl and more Swifts and hirundines.
Dungeness - An hour from the fishing boats this afternoon delivered a trickle of Gannets and Common Terns west and a Guillemot on the sea.
Very quiet everywhere today, but apparently there`s an important tennis match ongoing somewhere...
Despite the fact that it's only mid-July, there's been a real autumnal feel to the outside world this last few days with passage waders coming through and lots of Sand Martins and Swallows going south.
ReplyDeleteDunno about the tennis, I've been glued to the Test Match every afternoon.
I`m guessing the weather has been grim up north for some of these waders and the failed adults have left early. The pits around Dungeness are nice and wader-friendly at the moment and the coming weeks could be interesting ...
ReplyDeleteThe Test match was brilliant, always nice to beat that lot, and Channel 5`s summary of days play at 7pm has been superb too.