The Eider

 30th Dec. 2020

Went out for a walk along the Seasalter LNR this morning, quite nippy , 2 degs C but no wind and sunny so nice conditions. The tide was coming in rapidly and I could see a raft of c.250 wigeon mid channel but little else of note. Apart from half a dozen stonechats and a couple of skylarks the landward side was deserted although brents were beginning to arrive on the wheat fields. 

I decided I would walk up to the western end of Castle Coote,  about two miles, still nothing much going on. Lately, flocks of dunlin have taken to roost here in large numbers at high tide and large clouds of them were wheeling around before landing, although today many took off back to Sheppey.   Wigeon and teal were slowing drifting back to the western end of the Coote and then flying over the shingle into the lagoon where they seem to feel safe at high tide. 

One surprise was seeing the male eider that has been around for a few weeks and was approaching the entrance swim into the lagoon. It was quite wary of human presence and often steamed back out when alarmed as a few people were walking by and may have worried it.

I met Mike Hatton and the warden 'Laura' who told me she had just resigned after two years with the Trust, so no warden at the moment.

Snow Bunting at Seasalter

 22nd Dec. 2020

Day four of being in the covid 4 lockdown and I needed a walk after doing jobs around the house. I cleared some more out of the garage and fitted a new bright led light above the workbench, watched some TV and one day of rain so now time to go out but only to Seasalter.

It was not early, just 9.30 when I left the house but hardly any traffic and only two cars parked by the Sportsman PH really quiet and eerie.   I walked along the beach keeping off the muddy seawall footpath and in doing so hoped to find the snow bunting I keep missing.  The tide was out and nothing to see except the odd stonechat coming up on the wall so I had a chat with Steve A on the phone and slowly walking along the beach when I stopped suddenly.

I had to cut the conversation as the snow bunting was just twenty feet in front of me feeding. Keeping still I took plenty of photos, the bird not concerned by my presence. I slowly lowered myself to get to a better shot, getting up not being so easy. Unfortunately the light was awful, so dull, and in the 'shade' of the wall, needed high ISOs.  I moved away and watched for sometime pointing it out to Kevin D who came past along the seawall. Fifteen minutes later two large dogs came past and it was off flying really high and finally out of sight towards Harty Church.

I took a photo of the common seals on horse sands as it was such a calm day, their numbers seem to be

 increasing lately, I counted over a hundred the other week.

On the way home I checked out the whitefronts counting 28 in a field next to the brents, strange how they don't like one another's company.

Reculver, black redstart, kestrel. peregrine at SS

 17th Dec. 2020

A quiet few days seeing the whitefronts still at South Swale, the large brent flocks and the usual waders etc. I made a couple of trips to Reculver to get  shots of the black redstarts, I didn't go for the snow buntings which seemed to be attracting many birders/photographers.  An obliging kestrel was in the area  posing for shots and a peacock butterfly, I think flew past me by the towers.

         

        

Late pm I went to Seasalter checking for owls and harriers but nothing to see whilst I was there except for a peregrine perched on the top of a pylon.

Seasalter and Castle Coote

 Mon. 14th Dec.

A beautiful day and high tide about midday so I went up to the western end of C Coote where I suspected I would see all the dunlin and wader flocks fly over from Sheppey which they have been doing lately. On route the 1250 strong brent flock was still on the fields along with the 23 whitefronts. Seemed to be a dearth of small birds seeing only 3 mipits, 3-4 stonechats and 1 reed bunting. I met Mike Roser, Dave Perrin and Bob Gomes doing the WEBS count at CCoote. We watched the waders wheeling about over the roost at CC, rather restless, c.250 wigeon were on the inner pool but no other duck sp.

                        Brent Flock.      These fields are destined to be covered with solar panels!!

                                                        High tide at Castle Coote

   

                                                                          Wigeon

                                              Mainly Dunlin (one of the roost beaches they used)

One strange sighting in this day of social distancing was a group  of special needs 'children' on an outing, one in a wheelchair which they lifted over the style.   (Maybe in a bubble)

Reculver/Seasalter

 13th December

Ventured out to Reculver on the 11th pm but only stayed an hour seeing a couple of short-eared owls and little else, met Danny Chesterman on return to car. 

                                   A big crop on this record shot of one of the short-eared owls

Back to Seasalter on the 12th, very quiet but checked on the 23 whitefronts which were still there plus a large brent flock. The brents kept getting up and flying to different fields, they didn't seem to settle and towards the end of my visit took the whitefronts with them. Also a flock of 16 white fronts flew over the back and landed on Graveney marsh.  

          

                                          Three of the whitefronts with the brents behind

A lot of waders along the beach and a big flock of dunlin roosting on Castle Coote plus a handful of redshank plus 6 grey plovers perched on the breakwaters at high tide and 13 shelduck with five wigeon on the sea.

                                                                       Redshank

13th Dec.

A late start as the forecast was for heavy rain so had a lie in, however it was dry so down to SS meeting up with Geoff at the NRA. On the main drain 15 teal and 13 coots plus a couple of moorhens, out on the sea two or three red throats and one perhaps larger diver but to distant. Then the rain started and did not stop, gave it fifteen minutes but no, here for the day.

Seasalter Birding

 8th Dec. 2020

A gloomy and slightly foggy morning temperatures not much more than four degrees Centigrade. I took a few shot of the Seasalter beach showing how the tide is changing  the shoreline and scouring away the stones etc by about two and a half feet in just over a year, the chalet owners trying to hold back the inevitable.

                                                  The beach has dropped about 2-3 feet

Moving onto the S.Swale LNR it was rather quiet birdwise, the 4-5 stonechats that were present 4 days ago had disappeared, maybe the cold weather or maybe they just lay low because when it warms up I bet they will be there again. The brent flock (c.750) was on one field and further along near the white post the now 23 whitefronts were still present with a dozen more brents.

                                                    Brent flock at the back of the field

Apart from 5-6 skylarks I came across 3 meadow pipits coming up out of the grass which landed on the fence wire protecting the reedbed, one here showing a ring on its leg.

The white-fronted geese were settled in the next field and already having photos I thought I would  give my Olympus camera an image stabilizer test using the 300mm F4 and see what the lowest shutter speed was that I could hold steady.  Starting at a 1/125sec I managed to get the shutter speed down to 1/10th sec handheld, (the lens equivalent to 600mm on full frame) before there was blur in the image. Quite amazing I thought.

                                Handheld at 1/10th of a second with the 300mm (600mm full frame)

A look over the seawall revealed lots of common seals on the sands, 135 I counted and lots of pups.

                                                   135  Common seals on Horse Sands

The mudflats were almost deserted except for a few waders on the very tidal edge but I did see 35 shelduck, their numbers now picking up.

A Patch Year Tick

6th Dec. 2020

 A late start this morning at Seasalter, the tide was right out so I was able to pick up couple of wader month ticks, barwit and blackwit. The back track was quiet with just a few blackbirds stripping of the last hawthorn berries and back along the way to the seawall at least four stonechats were performing their chasing about. Climbing up the bund to speak to Geoff who had no luck finding the two snow buntings a great white egret came over our heads from Sheppey and seemed to be going in the Stour valley direction.

I walked up further to the brent flock resting in the field but the whitefronts had split off to another field nearer Castle Coote and I had no sign of the snow buntings either. The mudflats were deserted except far out on the water's edge and is was about low tide so miles away.  Took a couple of photos of the stonechats as there was virtually nothing else, a couple of mipits and reed buntings flying about was all to be seen.

Called it a day after that at 11.30, to many people about.