Sunday, 31 January 2010

New camera and Sandwich bay area

I got a new camera yesterday so took the chance this afternoon to try it out , there had been reports of Great White Egret at Worth near Sandwich and also Bean , Pink Footed and White-Fronted Geese had been seen there to, so my mind was made up and of i set to Sandwich in pursuit of these great birds.

On arrival at the Observatory i was given the info i craved and set of to the desired area to try and find some of these birds , the field the Geese had been seen in  a small pool in it and was totally frozen over ,there was no Geese anywhere to be seen however the field held plenty of Lapwings , Golden Plover and 2 Curlew plus the surrounding fields held 100s of Fieldfare and Redwing which are always good to see.

All of a sudden everything took too the air , there was a raptor being mobbed in the distance by Crows , it was a Common Buzzard which is quite a good sighting here , a little later a Marsh Harrier drifted over quite high .


No Geese or Egret , things were looking quite bad , then my pager went of alerting me to the news of a Tundra Bean Goose showing in a paddock near Walmer castle in Deal which was only about 15 mins away , so of i went and sure enough as soon as i arrived i was looking at the Tundra Bean Goose, i have manged a couple of photos , see below .


Tundra Bean Goose

After having a decent look at the Tundra Bean Goose i then headed back to Sandwich to try and locate the Great White Egret , and as luck would have it after my first scan i located it standing on a bank near a ditch , it was just looking around minding its own business, although distant you could see its yellow bill , long neck and its overall size  was much more prominent then Little Egret, wow not only was this a new bird for my year list it was also a new bird for me at this site .

 I did not add much more to my afternoons birding however these are some of my photos that i took with my new camera , first picture is of a Grey Squirrel , second picture is of some Mallards can anyone spot the female Tufted Duck ??? and the third picture is of course a Moorhen up a tree trying to be a Squirrel ......

Grey Squirrel

Mallard & Tufted Duck

Moorhen