Gary Howard's birds and wildlife

I drove through thick fog to deepest darkest Tunbridge Wells for dawn in an attempt to see Kent's first Blackpoll Warbler found late Saturday by local resident and Kent birder Andy Appleton in trees behind his garden! As expected it was an almost exclusively Kent Listers affair, a chance to catch up with old friends and wait for the mist to clear and the bird appear. Only a handful of people had seen the bird on Saturday as the bird wasn't found until after 3pm. I alternated between checking the tit flocks and chatting to mates before enjoying a cup of tea with the finder and getting the full story on this amazing "find". However, by the time I left, around 09.30, neither the bird had appeared nor the mist fully cleared and I had the sinking feeling it would be found when I was down at my mother-in-laws birthday "party" on the coast in Sussex and probably too far away for me to get to it!

However, the bird was not seen on Sunday despite much searching.