Early May blues

Lade - Lockdown Day 41 - cool and cloudy, se 2 - As we moved into early May this morning delivered near perfect weather conditions for seawatching along the Channel coast to coincide with the peak Pomarine Skua passage. Normally, Dungeness would be packed out with birders eagerly anticipating this short-lived event, but not this year of course, perhaps next year then...
  Meanwhile, just two miles away, we did our routine circuit of the local patch this morning where very little had changed apart from yet another increase in Common Whitethroat numbers with at least 20 males singing across the site, plus five singing Sedge Warblers. Waders noted flying over included several Whimbrel, two Ringed Plovers and a Redshank. Also noted a steady stream of Mediterranean Gulls heading towards Folkestone and an odd looking Kestrel with a white wing bar. The beach was checked from the boardwalk on a falling tide: 100 Sanderlings, 10 Dunlins, 10 Ringed Plovers, 15 Bar-tailed Godwits, plus the usual Oystercatchers and Curlews, two Sandwich Terns (low numbers this spring) and three Gadwall. At sea at least five Grey Seals were present.
  The garden moth trap held 15 moths of five species.

                                Prostrate Broom

                               Sea Campion

                               Ox-eye Daiseys

  The recent drop of rain has done wonders for the floral display across the NNR, as testified by the pics taken in yesterdays sunshine, as well as providing ideal feeding conditions for corvids, Starlings and House Sparrows probing for invertebrates on the turf-clad shingle ridges.