Gary Howard's birds and wildlife

I left home and drove in heavy rain towards Sheppey wondering why I'd bothered to step outside. Luckily, as I crossed the bridge over the Swale onto the island I left the rain behind and as I drove further east the sun came out.

I spent a while looking through the waders and gulls at Leysdown before driving towards Muswell Manor. A Barn Owl flew towards me from the Swale NR and over the car towards a large patch of rough grass below the sea wall. I turned the car around and watched as the Barn Owl hovered, dived into the long grass  and then a male Kestrel appeared and flew off with a prey item - presumably having robbed the Barn Owl!

The Barn Owl continued to hunt over the grass and I parked and got some reasonable pictures.

Soon after the Barn Owl flew off skeins of geese appeared over the fields behind Muswell Manor and I drove over to check them out.

They settled in the fields adjacent to the reedbed which stretches to Capel Fleet. There were around 350 White-fronts, 50 Greylags and lots of Brents which were still coming in. Eventually about 1100 Brents were settled on the ground and I scoped them systematically until I found 3 Pale-bellied's amongst the Dark-bellied's. The geese were disturbed by walkers but soon returned and on another search I found a Black Brant. Several Marsh Harrier's quartered the reedbed and a flock of 12 Ruff  fed in the flooded fields. A few other birders dropped by and scoped the geese. Soon there were 2 Barn Owls hunting over the rough grass by the sea wall.

With the sun setting I drove out and bumped into Barry Wright and Louise. We chatted for a while before driving along to Capel Fleet where we spent the last minutes of daylight scanning for birds from the hill above the Fleet. A few Fieldfare was about all we saw.