Terns galore!

Lade - mild, cloudy, ne 2 - An overcast sort of a day that gradually got cooler as the afternoon progressed. A few more Whitethroats had moved in on the local patch, while a cracking male Ring Ouzel on the Desert, for once, showed quite well feeding amongst the short turf before flushed by a Magpie.
  A `bumper` crop of moths in the garden trap of six macro species included 25 Tawny Shears and a Chinese Character.

                                Male Ring Ouzel

                                Tawny Shears

                                Chinese Character (left), bird dropping (right)

Dungeness - 1530 - 1730hrs - From the fishing boats this afternoon a very good two hour seawatch produced several hundred Common and Arctic Terns pulsing through, some very close to shore, along with lesser numbers of Sandwich Terns, 10 Little Terns and a Black Tern. Arctic Terns are, of course, one of the greatest long-distance travellers on the planet and this afternoons movement was a privilege to watch. Ten Arctic Skuas also moved up Channel along with 200 Barwits, 50 Whimbrels, 10 Gannets, 10 Med Gulls, six Sanderlings, Fulmar, Red-throated Diver and a Merganser.

                               Arctic Skuas, pale phase and dark phase

Elsewhere today the Black-winged Stilts were reported at the southern end of ARC this morning, while the Crane was in the same field at the back of Caldecote Lane, Lydd (per MC). On the Boulderwall fields a stunning Blue-headed Wagtail paid a brief visit (DS) and a Ring Ouzel was noted in the Trapping Area (OL).

                                Blue-headed Wagtail, by David Scott