Oare Marshes Waders Bonanza

Thousands of Waders .

The above sight greeted me on the East Flood at Oare Marshes yesterday 31st August , i met up with Adam .F. along the road side and as we scanned through the waders we could see at least 4 Curlew Sandpipers in the distance , the sun was at the wrong angle for us so we decided to walk around to Faversham creek with the sun behind us , we noted a single Sandwich Tern near the lay by as we walked past.

Sandwich Tern near lay-by.

We bumped into Neil  and Angela , ( nice to meet you ) on our way around and eventually we all met up with Murray along Faversham creek , Murray informed us he had made a count of approx 36 Curlew Sandpipers including 1 moulting adult , i managed a count of 30 fresh juv. birds which was an amazing sight to see in their fresh looking plumage , sadly i never managed a photo of these , we did add hundreds of Redshank , Black Tailed Godwit and Golden Plover , plus lesser numbers of Dunlin . A Hobby flew over the flood spooking all the waders and i managed a record shot of the Golden Plover in flight.

Golden Plover in flight.

Murray picked out a Garganey on the flood and kindly let me look through his scope and then Neil picked out a fast flying Clouded Yellow zipping by us . We decided to head off around past the sluice and back along the road and on route Adam picked out a Yellow Wagtail walking through the fresh marsh and then Neil found a smart looking Wheatear .

Golden Plover near the lay-by.

We only added Linnet and Goldfinch on our walk back and a quick look from the road at the waders produced nearly 300 Golden Plovers . Adam and myself had a quick look past the watch house and other than adding 2 more Clouded Yellows and a single Little Grebe we did not see much else , good couple of hours again at Oare .