Stonechats

Dungeness - mild, cloudy, w 2 - Joined MC in the seawatch hide briefly where a steady flow of Gannets and Red-throated Divers were coming and going, plus a few Sandwich Terns up-Channel. On the land, when the sun broke through, some welcome spring bird song was music to the ears; mostly of Dunnock, Chaffinch, Wren and Great Tit, but also one or two of Meadow Pipit and Linnet. Two Chiffchaffs and a Firecrest skulked in the lighthouse garden and at least four Stonechats were active in surrounding scrub, two of which were soon trapped by JTM, the male being a rubicola type. Several more Firecrests filtered through the bushes in the moat and a Wheatear was on the shingle outback.

                               Stonechat, DBO

                                Foxes sunbathing, Lade wall `mirror`

  At Lade around noon three Chiffchaffs sang around the ponds along with a Cetti`s Warbler, while a Great Spotted Woodpecker tapped away on a dead branch. A trickle of `mewing` Mediterranean Gulls passed overhead again and more Chiffchaffs could be heard in back gardens hereabouts. Several more Stonechats were noted on the Desert and on the Kerton Road triangle.
  This afternoon on the sands, 50 Sandwich Terns present along with the usual Black-headed and Common Gulls, Curlews, Oystercatchers and ten Ringed Plovers.