Warm, dry and sunny, SW 4 - Having been away this past week at a music festival at Cropredy in a verdant Oxfordshire it felt good to return to the sun-baked, biscuit-coloured flatlands with the harvest in full swing. An early morning Ted walk produced plenty of Willow Warblers and Whitethroats in the hedgerows north of New Romney, along with the latest crop of juvenile Reed Warblers crashing about in the reed-fringed ditches being fed by the adults. Two Kingfishers were also noted along the New Cut, plus a host of gulls and corvids gleaning the bare earth in the wake of the turf-cutting operations in Hope Lane. From Hanson hide late morning a collection of at least 40 Common Terns scattered across the shingle islands comprised mostly adult birds (some already moulting), several juveniles from elsewhere and a home-grown three week old chick; and where an Avocet chick has also miraculously fledged with the adult bird still in attendance. Other waders included 100 Lapwings and singles of Oystercatcher, Greenshank, Common Sandpiper and Ringed Plover. At least six Garganeys were logged amongst the dabblers and a juvenile Hobby imperiously swept over temporarily flushing the waders. A check of Burrowes from the hide revealed ten more Common Terns actively swirling over a green-topped distant island and although I couldn`t confirm any chick sightings, judging from the adults` reaction when a crow flew over it seems likely that there are probably a few chicks hunkered down in the greenery. Otherwise there was little else of note apart from a few Lapwings and Common Sandpipers, hundreds of diving ducks and gulls and a steady stream of Sand Martins over the lake.
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