Romney Salts - warm, dry and sunny, light airs - Superb weather for tramping across the stubble fields at the Salts commenced in some style with a flock of 10 Tree Sparrows amongst 50 House Sparrows in bushes opposite the allotments in Church Lane, the first time I`ve seen them so close to town. The dung heap was fairly quiet with only a pair of Stonechats and Pied Wagtails on offer, while further down the track towards the airfield 13 Yellowhammers, four more Stonechats and 20 Corn Buntings were noted. Over the next couple of hours, slowly criss-crossing the stubble fields produced a minimum of 130 Common and five Jack Snipes, 200 Skylarks, 150 Curlews, 10 Meadow Pipits, five Reed Buntings and a pair of Red-legged Partridges.
Also in the general area, hundreds of corvids, Common and Black-headed Gulls, Magpies, Woodpigeons, Stock Doves, Starlings, two Jays, 10 Blackbirds, a Song Thrush, six Common Buzzards and two Kestrels. Unsurprisingly, not a single winter thrush or Linnet was seen; but surely there must`ve been one or two Lapland Buntings lurking somewhere on the Salts... After walking many miles across rough farmland I`d worked up a fierce thirst, so diverted into the Smuggler`s Ale House in New Romney High Street on the way home for a couple of pints with the friendly locals, surely the finest way to end any profitable birding session!
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