Gary Howard's birds and wildlife

It didn't start too well today. My mate Paul Matson was expected to arrive just before 07.00 but at 06.30 he 'phoned to say that he was stuck on the M23 and no idea why there was a jam. He updated me regularly but having eventually driven onto the M25 got stuck in the aftermath of yet another accident.  He finally rocked up at just before 10 ! Our thoughts of a trip to Norfolk / Suffolk were now rendered fairly pointless so we headed into East Kent and as luck would have it had a very good day.

Before Paul arrived I did the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch with the kids. On Tuesday I'd seen 5 Lesser Redpoll in the garden and it was pleasing to see 2 still present today. We also had a male Siskin, and Nuthatch.

Lesser Redpoll

Long-tailed Tit

Our first port of call was the paddock adjacent to Walmer Castle where a Tundra Bean Goose had been present for several days. It sounded rather odd but when we arrived we found a large well fenced paddock of rough grass and a very wary Bean Goose which quickly walked further away when we got out of the car. We kept our distance but a guy who was walking along the fence line with a camera caused the bird to take flight. Luckily I'd already taken a few digi-pics or else I'd have been even less pleased. The bird did return according to later pager reports.

Tundra Bean Goose

We drove through Deal and out onto the Ancient Highway alongside Worth Marshes and spent a couple of hours birding from the road. The weather was lovely ; sunny, dry and cold.

There were hundreds of Redwing present and quite a few Fieldfare. A ringtail Hen Harrier caused regular havoc and we saw a distant Peregrine. Corn Buntings were foraging amongst the cattle feed.

It took a long while to locate the 3 Bean Geese that had been present for the past few days at least and when we did we found them in company with 2 Pink-feet and a White-front! 

Paul picked up the Great-white Egret showing distantly by the main drain on Worth Marshes.

Just when we thought we could n't get any luckier 23 Snow Bunting appeared on the adjacent golf coarse and after a brief spell on the grass flew about and then off towards the sea wall.

Hen Harrier

Redwing

Corn Bunting

We had a look at the Restharrow scrape and dune meadow but it was very quiet so we headed out and onto Pegwell Bay.

It was mid-afternoon and the tide was dropping. Around 650 Golden Plover were on the mud flats together with c300 Dunlin, 200+ Curlew and small numbers of Grey Plover, Bar-tailed Godwit, Redshank and Ringed Plover. As we reached the new hide 4 Twite flew in calling and dropped into the vegetation on the edge of the mud flats, they gave brief  views but were soon off again. A male Sparrowhawk quartered the marsh and we also saw a ring-tailed Hen Harrier and a superb male.

Happy that we'd done well at Pegwell we decided to finish at Grove Ferry and duly made our way there and walked up onto the viewing mound.

As the sunset we notched up Cettis Warbler and Water Rail but little else of note but we'd had a good day.