Local April Birding plus a Trip to Essex

 I had a really busy April birding in Kent with some wonderful highlights plus an away day to Essex, here are a selection of some of my birding trips .   



                                 10th April : Sandwich Bay

Ring Ouzel by the Obs.

This stunning ♂ Ring Ouzel near the bird observatory showed really well at times and was my personal 1st record of this species in Sandwich.

♂ Ring Ouzel.

15th April : Conningbrook CP Ashford

Black Tern.

Neil Burt has been patching Conningbrook for many years and has found some really great birds in that time, and in times of large housing development this site is under tremendous pressure, however Neil is still toughing it out and has had an amazing spring finding some rare and scarce birds , sadly i missed most of them but i did see this delightful Black Tern.

Black Tern .

Watching this bird twisting and diving for fish with the back drop of several warblers singing was amazing, keep up the good work Neil.

20th April : New Hythe & Elmley Track

Nightingale.

A  visit to New Hythe to hopefully see or at least hear Nightingale was amazing , i was afforded my best ever views of this wonderful songster with 2 birds in particular giving a tremendous close show as they chased each other and now and again stopping to give a vocal show unrivalled.

Nightingale in full song.

There were so many other birds in full song it was quite an amazing site to visit , from here i headed to Elmley and drove up & down the track a couple of times.

Yellow Wagtail.

Lot's of birds to see along the Elmley track plus plenty of Brown Hares but the highlight for me was superb views of  Yellow Wagtail.

Yellow Wagtail.

25th April : Abberton Reservoir 

Ortolan Bunting.

I joined RR for a trip to Essex to see the ♂ Ortolan Bunting and although it was quite distant i had some really great scope views.

It was mainly feeding in the grass & nettles but the lovely bright colours were very evident even at this range.

Hybrid Blue headed x Yellow Wagtail.

We also saw this complex 'Yellow Wagtail' , stunning bright yellow underparts with a curious head colouration, birders on site were calling it Channel Wagtail !?

Channel Wagtail.

We popped into the visitor centre then had a brief view over the reservoir and saw good numbers of terns, mainly Common Terns but RR picked out an Arctic Tern then 2 Black Terns flew into view, another cracking days birding.