26th Jan

 

A lot more comfortable today, so after a catch up with some mates at the cafe, I headed over to Dover to look around the harbour area but my car had other ideas, it wouldn't let me go to Dover it just kept on going and ended up at Oare Marshes.....well it is a nice day. It was nice to get out and finally managed a walk around the East circuit. Birds of note on the East side were 20 Ruff, green woodpecker a pair of song thrush, 8 fieldfare, snipe were eveywhere you looked, lots of redshank and dunlin, a few grey plover, turnstone, avocets and a oare marsh first for me was a red headed smew. West side held mainly teal and widgeon with 1 grey heron, little egret, kestrel an a few stock doves. Swale held plenty of shelduck on sheppy side, a few small groups of brent geese flying through and amongst  the avocets and dunlin on horsesands were 11 grey seal. Mockets was quite raptor happy with up to 5 common buzzard, 2 marsh harriers and 1 roughleg buzzard. At 1 point I had marsh harrier 3 common buzzard and 1 rough legged buzzard all in the scope together.
Count for the day 56.

Common Gull
 

Dunlin
 

Mallard

Turnstone
 

22nd Jan

My first trip to Dungy this year. Spent about 1 1/2 hours in the visitor centre looking over a rather quiet Burrowes, usual coot and tufted ducks, a small flock of shoveller flew past and round towards Scott hide area, 2 great white egrets, a sparrowhawk landed on the concrete under Dennis's hide briefly, 1 drake and 2 female goldeneye, 2 marsh harriers and a goldcrest stayed a while on the gate adj entrance to centre watched at close quarters by many. A drive up to Denge added a common gull and little grebe to the day list. On my way out spotted 5 snipe near boulderwell farm. Then over to Scotney to add barnacle geese and 2 bean geese.
Considering I didn't go very far a day count of 49 wasn't too bad.

Friendly Goldcrest

It never crosed my mind that sheep had a camouflage mode!
 

20th Jan update

4 Fieldfares just dropped in briefly, only managed a pic through the patio doors..I must get the windolene out!

Filedfare - through patio doors (dirty glass)

20th Jan

A new tick for my garden...a fieldfare. This now makes a garden count for 2013 on only the 20th day of the year a very surprising 26. This is more surprising when you learn that the count for the whole of last year in total was also 26.
I never managed any pictures of the fieldfare (yet!) so here is a couple of passable record shots from whitstable tesco on thursdays visit. As mentioned before, the light was terrible so the pics are a bit "blown out".

18th Jan

After a prompt from Pete, I am of the same conclusion that the owl from yesterday was after all a long eared owl.........life tick!
Felt a little better today so decided to have a drive to Whitstable Tesco to try and see the waxwings before they disappear. I had a look around for a while and then found a small flock of about 10 birds which showed for approx 5 mins before flying off again, weather was so dark and grey today that I couldn't get any half decent pics. Drove back through Seasalter, stopping for 2 mins near the Sportsman for a quick look over the sea wall where there were curlew, redshank, turnstone and grey plover and lapwing on the marsh.

17th Jan

Still stuck indoors continuing my year list from the comfort of my settee. Numbers reached 25 today with the addition of goldcrest (2 today), wren and sitting in neighbours large conifer....long eared owl!!!! Wow! A few dunnock around as are blackbirds, 6 blue tits, 8 chaffinches, the odd greenfinch and goldfinch coming through. A regular song thrush showed again today, not seen the blackcap for 6 days now.
Feeling desperate to get out now, If I feel up to it, I might try a trip to Dungy over the weekend, even if it is just to sit in visitor centre.
Spent the last 2 days resetting my laptop back to factory settings, reloading programs etc after getting a rather nasty virus even though I have anti virus software. I have most of it back up and running, lost some pics that I hadn't yet backed up elsewhere, lost all my emails and friends addresses, lost my 2012 year list from Sept onwards - I must back up files more often!

Long eared owl playing peek-a-boo
 

2nd Jan 2013

I hope everyone made use of the good weather yesterday to start their new year list off with a good session. I'm still recording my list today and have so far managed a mind boggling number of.....wait for it.......15! Yep that's not a typo it really is 15. I'm stuck at home being a comfy birder again, sitting on settee coffee in one hand, bins in the other. Oooh wait a minute....make that 16, a male black cap just came in by the feeders, that's the second time I've seen him in a week, he lands by the feeders but I've never seen him eat anything yet.
Last years list ended at 171, so that's already a big target to aim for but I would love to get 200. My garden list topped out at a respectable 32 beating 2011 by 4 birds.
Magpie.....No. 17!!!
I am due in to hospital Friday for my next operation, so I am keeping my fingers crossed that I can clear ths infection enough so that they do not postpone it, so I won't be posting any more on the blog until I have recovered enough to go out again. Fingers crossed, once recovered from the op I will be a bit more mobile again and so will definately be pushing to break the 200 count this year.
So the only thing left to say now is Happy New Year to you all, and I hope you all have as good a year as I want!

Dec 28th

Managed to get out today at last. Started at Arc with wet and dark weather, no good for photos, where there were all the usual wildfowl plus 9 goldeneye (4M + 5F), 2 x redhead smew, 2 x great white egrets, 2 marsh harriers and a bittern flew past. Over to main reserve, 1 great white egret on track by gate to denge and Dennis's hide showed 4 x redhead smew down the bottom end. Rich roast time! Visitor centre much more comfortable than the wet weather outside, watched plenty of tufted duck, shoveller and widgeon amongst others and a pintail could just be made out in the misty rain flying over. Then something black and white caught my eye flying low across the top of the water.. a male smew, which landed over the back of burrowes across from the centre where a female later joined it alongside a male goldeneye and a female goosander. A drive up to denge showed the great white still near the gate and another on denge making the days count 4. Plenty more marsh harrier activity with several views of 3 hunting together, 6 little grebes a grey heron and a song thrush in a bush beside the hide. Quick visit back to car park to check the feeders which showed, blue and great tits, chaffinch, greenfinch, reed bunting, robin, tree sparrow and moorhen. Back for a second view at Arc which added a sparrowhawk to the day list plus a female red crested pochard and a kestrel and greater spotted woodpecker from the carpark.
The pictures show the really bad light so they're not very good!
Count for the day 50

Song Thrush

Bittern fly-by

15th Dec

Not too good today, been a bit rough all week really so no trip out today, instead I'm sitting in my lounge looking out the patio doors into the garden. I scrubbed all the feeders today and filled them all with fresh seeds, fat balls and peanuts and now settled down to list all I can see from my settee (one comfy birder!) A good mix of birds today, house sparrow, dunnock, robin, blackbird, herring gull, black headed gull, carrion crow, magpie, jackdaw, greenfinch, goldfinch, chaffinch, blue tit, wood pigeon, feral pigeon, great tit, starling, even a greater spotted woodpecker sat in neighbours tree briefly.

8th Dec

Stodmarsh today , starting at reed bed hide where there were 53 greylags, 42 Mallards and 23 teal. A marsh harrier kept lifting much greater numbers of teal, mallard and shoveller from main lake. Lots of blackbirds around which must be due to an influx of euro birds. Woods held a small group of goldcrests, and a few jays as well as many squirrels. Drove round to grove end where I first walked up the viewing ramp - should have saved my energy, only one bird in a view a litle egret on the far bank, I've never seen it so quiet. Feast hide had a family of long tailed tits on the approach and the pond held some mallard a few teal and a cormorant. 1 bearded tit showed for a short while, a marsh harrier was quatering the reeds and 1 sparrowhawk and 2 peregrines flew over.
Returning back to the gate showed a new sighting - could this be the 'Beast of Stodmarsh'?- I bet the rabbit thought so!
Count for the day 41



Beast of Stodmarsh?

Bearded Tit



Long tailed tit

  

Cormorant soaking up the rays

End of the day.