The Grand Landfill Post

So it turns out that March-June is actually quite a ridiculous time to go without posting so I'm just going to spurt titbits and highlights in a bid to catch up everything I haven't bothered to write about. Bare with for the stream of consciousness!

Swanscombe continued to come up trumps with more and more warblers returning to breed, but my favourite moment had to be this juvenile Common Seal just hanging out on a jetty just up from the newly designated SSSI. The Theme Park threat continues to rumble on here but there is every chance that the campaign to save it will manage to pull it off!

Spring arrivals were coming thick and fast, with Spotted Redshank turning up and Terns arriving along the river to breed. My favourite though was my first self-found big name, a pair of Garganey at Cliffe Pools and only the second record for the year on the Hoo Peninsula!

An April trip to Old Lodge in Sussex provided a wonderful morning ticking woodland species like Redstart, Crossbill and Woodlark that I just don't get a chance to see near me, along with Dartford Warblers, Sparrowhawks, Palmate Newts and some cheeky Fallow Deer. Along with a failed twitch near Brighton for Hoopoe, it's great to get away from North Kent from time to time to see other habitats and wildlife.

As May rolled round I stumbled onto a wonderful pair of Short Eared Owls at Swanscombe. Due to how late it was I had hoped they would stay and breed, but it seems they were just held down by the North-Easterly winds that were a theme of Spring, and they have since moved on. This had contributed to some strange migration patterns all season, for example a Hen Harrier and Whimbrel on the same day at Oare a few weeks prior. 

Spring's star bird was a Collared Pratincole at Cliffe Pools. Found by the eponymous Mr McComiskey at Higham a few weeks before, I hadn't had a chance to find it before it luckily resurfaced. Although a wader, it acts and looks like a giant Swift, hawking the wetlands for insects on the wing. There had been roughly 80 UK records of this Mediterranean stunner in the past 200 years, so I was thrilled to get on it, despite the fact that 3 (!) turned up at Dungeness soon after.

Work-wise with the RSPB has largely been spent surveying the breeding waders on the Marshes, and it has been great surrounded by chicks and piping adults, along with inquisitive Yellow Wagtails and crazy numbers of Hirundines. 

A blog entry wouldn't be complete without some reptiles, and I've finally broken my Grass Snake duck for the year, followed by a few more individuals since. I'm looking to up my surveys this year, especially as Covid largely halted progress last time out, so hopefully there will be many more to come! 

In a nutshell that's the highlights for Spring, I'm sure there's gonna be something I've forgotten about but I might sneakily work it into a later blog if anything comes to mind 😋 Until the next one! 

The Ultimate Birding Trip of Ultimate Destiny

As it's been so long since I wrote on here I thought I'd better do something special to get back into it, and basically went on the ultimate birding tour up to Yorkshire with my good friend Joe and his other half Becky.

Kicking things off with a pit stop at Rutland Water, it was fantastic to watch nesting Ospreys. We got a pair and two chicks, and a host of wildfowl and fledgling tits flocking around.

Having only seen one distant Osprey in my life in passage migration, seeing them perched and posing was awesome!

After a motorway journey littered with Buzzards, Kites and even a Hare bouncing around a showground, we then arrived at our campsite near Hull. After settling in we took an evening stroll to get the lay of the land, and despite no owls we got a few singing Yellowhammers, along with more Hare and then the first lifer of the trip, a Tree Sparrow! 

It soon became apparent that there was a pretty good sized flock in and around the farm house, and with our curiosity satisfied we turned in before the main event.

The next day took us down a long lane to Bempton Cliffs. I've heard a lot about the spectacles on offer, and my god did it not disappoint! Once past the visitor centre you are simply overwhelmed by the noise of Kittiwakes and Gannets, and literally every single square foot of the many cliff faces are covered in seabirds, most of which I hadn't seen since I was a kid. 

You can't get past the cuteness of the Puffins, and I tried my best to get photos whilst simultaneously cacking myself staring down a 300 foot drop into the crashing waves. The hype around this place is definitely accurate, I can't quite put into words how incredible the combination of noise and numbers of the seabird colonies, nor the sheer beauty of the scenery. And hey, having massive Gannets soaring a couple of metres from your head is just mental!

A stop off for a woodland walk down to the beach afterwards finally gave me a distant Shag which I'd dipped at Bempton, and some fantastic views of a Bullfinch foraging in the undergrowth, before a Roe Deer put in an appearance before home.

For the return journey we weighed up a few options regarding different RSPB reserves, but in the end took a slightly different route on a couple of twitching pitstops. Having heard about a few rarities on a random patch in Lincolnshire, we headed for the small village of Bardney, before walking down a cycle path until we reached a small patch of marshland. Although the views were distant (don't judge these awful photos), we got Glossy Ibis, Whooper Swans, and a pair of Common Cranes! 

One pub-lunch later we were off again for the big breaking news of the day, a Roller had been seen by a farm house in Suffolk! Wasting no time, despite getting stuck behind some seriously slow drivers, we made our way to what felt like the middle of nowhere. Feeling slightly awkward essentially looking round it's last known location in someone's front garden (well, paddock, but you get the idea) we were thankfully rescued by a local who pointed us down the road towards another field.

This definitely felt like my first big twitch, with maybe 40 odd birders all training their scopes on the phone lines, and the bird performed spectacularly, posing up high before bombing down for food. I didn't actually realise how rare they were in this country, having grouped them with Bee-Eaters and Hoopoes in my head which are both now seen semi-regularly on these shores, but it turns out that Rollers are something special!

What an unreal couple of days! I'm definitely aiming to get on board with more twitches, and the year list is now looking very solid at 164. Massive thanks to Joe for driving and to both the guys for their excellent company and memory making!

I'll try to write a bit of a catch up post in the next couple of days to fill in the massive gap since I last did a blog, a fair bit went down! Until the next one!