Balearic Shearwaters

Saturday Lade - warm, dry and sunny SW 5 - A breezy, humid morning for a circuit of the local patch where 52 Cormorants, 38 Great Crested Grebes, 27 Grey Herons, 15 Little and six Great White Egrets were counted around south lake, such is the volume of fish on offer combined with a series of low islands and shallow margins suitable for the long-legs to hunt from. The habitat has been fairly similar from late summer onwards as the drought kicked in and lowered the water table; in over 20 years of watching this site I have never seen anything quite like it for numbers of herons and egrets.

                                   Grey Herons and Great White Egrets - south lake

                                  Kingfisher - Dengemarsh

                                  Pintail - ARC

Visits to the reserve since my last post have delivered distant views of a second White-winged Black Tern on ARC plus a few passage waders such as Ruff, Greenshank, Dunlin and Blackwit and a Spotted Flycatcher by the gate in the car park. The fishing boats produced up to 10 Balearic Shearwaters on Thursday with two more on Saturday plus a host of Sandwich and Common Terns, Kittiwakes, Gannets and Arctic Skuas along with single figures of Black Tern, Little Gull and a Red-throated Diver

Sunday - mild, dry, W2 - Spent the morning birding with Albert my grandson. We started at the gully which was relatively quiet apart from a Wheatear, several Chiffchaffs and Stonechats, plus a light overhead passage of Meadow Pipits. A tour of the bird reserve delivered all the usual suspects and we eventually rattled up a respectable 70 species including Greenshank, Ruff, Cattle Egrets, Sparrowhawk and a large mixed flock of common tits and warblers by the ARC car park. We missed a Pec Sand that was found on Dengemarsh before relocating to the Xmas Dell wetlands.