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| Lapwings at the farm yesterday |
Yesterday I was pleased to see that the number of Lapwings in Tart's Field had increased to thirteen birds. Roy counted twenty-six roosting there this afternoon, so with two from Monday to Thursday, five on Friday, thirteen yesterday and twenty-six today, it really looks like we might be building up a wintering flock! Hopefully they'll get to a decent number and maybe pull something in with them. Anyway, as far as I know, twenty-six is the highest number recorded on the deck in nearly five years.
I'd managed to get a few decent sessions up at the patch this week, and rewards were few and far between so I thought I'd accept a change of scenery today and take a casual day out in Kent with Josh, and Amy, from the local camera club that I've been to a couple of times. They were mainly interested in watching waders so I took them to a beach that I remembered at Leysdown-on-Sea, Isle of Sheppey. Nothing spesh there but we enjoyed close views of a select variety of common 'shorebirds' such as Sanderling and Turnstone plus a small group of dark-bellied Brent Geese. There was only one Dunlin! We briefly visited Capel Fleet where we saw six or so Marsh Harriers and a couple of Peregrines, plus a Common Snipe, large flocks of Teal, and half a dozen Golden Plovers. After this we decided to go to see the flock of Waxwings at Yorkletts, where sixteen birds showed very well in the end. I'm sure there'll be local flocks around Banstead or Sutton this winter but they're always worth seeing if the opportunity's there. Super things.
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| Waxwings, Yorkletts |
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| Sanderlings, Leysdown-on-Sea |
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| Turnstones, Leysdown-on-Sea |
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| Redshank, Leysdown-on-Sea |
