Red-necked Phalarope

ARC - 0630 - 0900hrs - sunny, light airs - Yesterday evenings juvenile Red-necked Phalarope was still present this morning viewable from the causeway road. `Spinning` like a good `un on the mirror calm lake it motored about a fair bit feeding in open water, at times amongst the diving ducks. Last autumns bird was a week earlier, but better late than never and always a real treat to see any species of phalarope.

                               Red-necked Phalarope, ARC

  First thing the lake was smothered in thousands of Sand Martins. Numbers were difficult to establish as birds kept coming and going, but there must`ve been 5,000 plus at times, so quite a spectacle. From Hanson hide three Little Stints and six Common Sandpipers were the pick of the waders, plus two Garganeys, a Kingfisher and several Great Crested Newts crawling across the path in the heavy dew.
  Around the car park scrub a few Common and Lesser Whitethroats, two Blackcaps, Blue, Great and Long-tailed Tits, Reed Buntings, Wrens, Blackbirds, Dunnocks and an increase in Robins. Down to the pines more of the same, plus several Willow Warblers, two Sedge Warblers, a Garden Warbler, Green Woodpecker and two Wheatears by the water tower.
  We then wandered over the road and joined a couple of locals scanning the fields at Boulderwall where the Cattle Egret showed intermittently near the cows. The near reedbed attracted several Reed Warblers in the sunshine and a `pinging` Bearded Tit. Several hundred Greylags flew over and a couple of birders reported three Wood Sandpipers on Hayfield 3.
Dungeness - 1500-1630hrs - A seawatch from the fishing boats this afternoon was notable for the number of terns feeding/moving offshore, including 500 Sandwich, 100 Common and 20 Black Terns, 20 Gannets and two dark phase Arctic Skuas. As usual there was much lively banter from the local seawatchers,
  This is the last post for a while as we`re off to Norway for a short break.