Boring Brian

Saturday - Dungeness - 1000hrs - mild, showery, sw 6 - With Storm Brian whipping up the Channel an hour at the fishing boats seemed the best birding option as any self respecting passerine would be well and truly hunkered down. However, seawatching is rarely brilliant this late in the season with a raging south-westerly, and so it proved to be with just the usual Gannets and Sandwich Terns in the ascendancy, plus a few Kittiwakes through, an Arctic Skua and a drake Eider. Several pulses of Swallows and at least two House Martins went out while small parties of coasting Goldfinches moved west.
  Despite the strong winds, Goldcrests and Goldfinches were noted around the Plovers garden this morning as well as a couple of Red Admirals on the buddleia when the sun poked through the clouds.
  Another hour at the fishing boats this afternoon in poor weather conditions peppered with heavy squalls delivered very little apart from Sandwich Terns and Gannets.
  Once again the Met Office over-egged the pudding and Storm Brian failed to live up to a `proper blow` and deliver a few juicy seabirds. On the plus side though, at least our cottage roof remained intact!
  After a cracking sing around night in the Star at St-Mary-in-the-Marsh, commemorating Trafalgar Day with Romney Marsh Morris, we bundled out of the pub to the magical sound of migrating Redwings calling overhead in the darkness, which sounded a whole lot better than my singing!

                                Great White Egrets and Pintails

Sunday - Lade  - 0800hrs - cool, sunny, nw 2 - With the gale blown out overnight this morning dawned bright and sunny but with a much fresher feel than of late as the wind had veered round to the north-west. We flogged around the local patch where the only migrants noted were two Swallows hurrying south over the Desert and several Chiffchaffs in a mixed passerine flock in the willow swamp. Two Marsh Harriers were keeping the dabbling ducks and Coots on red alert and a Sparrowhawk slipped across south lake, my first sighting for a while. Egret numbers around the margins topped out at 21 Little and three Great Whites, along with 10 Grey Herons, plus 52 Cormorants and 60 Great Crested Grebes on the water, which must be taking its toll on the carp population.
Dungeness - An afternoon tour of the bird reserve in bright sunshine produced the long staying Red-necked Grebe and two Little Stints on ARC, a flock of 20 egrets on Burrowes and a flyover Cattle Egret at Boulderwall. Also noted on the reserve Ring Ouzel, Curlew Sandpiper and up to five more Cattle Egrets, while a Caspian Gull was seen at Dungeness fishing boats. Was also good to bump into some old birding friends from Bedfordshire today.