Egrets Galore, Kent's MEGA plus new ticks.

Sat.19th

A bit of sun at last but I still had to endure the fresh westerly, so another walk around the patch finding my first winter kingfisher then a greenfinch flew overhead, another month tick, fairly scarce here.  A female marsh harrier took off from a small tree and was escorted away by four crows meanwhile 12-15 siskins made their way west. The resident goldfinches, stonechats and cetti's made their presence known plus a half a dozen swallows were heading west.  Other than magpies and crows etc it was fairly quiet.  

Coffee break on the beach bench allowed time to do a count of the egrets spread out along the waterline and I arrived at high count of 54, the most this year!

 Some Of The Little Egrets

Sun.20th

I took another look over the patch, accompanied by another regular sighting, Geoff B.. Nothing much different to yesterday but 14 greylags flying towards Oare were new for the year, others seen were  willow warbler, 3 siskins, 1 blackcap, chiffchaff and green woodpecker etc.. Five herons sunning themselves in the conifers was a pleasant surprise.

Mon.22nd

A work day with kids but managed to get the afternoon off to go and see Kent's mega at Dungeness, the Acadian Flycatcher presumably from the USA.

Tues.23rd

After all the rain it was strange to have a nice sunny day but still had the wind penalty, however, down to the patch at Seasalter again where I met Martin Wilson (the Whitstable one). Together we had a wander around finding the kingfisher again, a couple of skylarks, c.25 siskins going west, 3 chiffs and my first goldcrest of the year. Another month tick were 7 teal giving the place the once over but decided to go elsewhere, also a few swallows plus three house martins and the usual chats etc..

When discussing the rain, Martin announced his rain gauge had recorded three and a half inches so far this month!