Pintail.
I only had a couple of spares hours today so i popped over to Oare Marshes which is fastly becoming a local patch , i parked up by the East Flood and had a scan across the flood noting plenty of Ducks and Coots , there were quite a few Pintail which is one of my fav ducks , in and amongst the fringes i counted 16 Common Snipe although there were probably alot more , on the far side of the flood the Lapwings took to the sky and there were a couple of small waders amongst them and i only saw them very briefly but i am fairly certain they were Ruff ??
Two Common Gulls.
There were also two Common Gulls on the nearby spit , i think these gulls are really smart and enjoyed watching them , i then drove down to the slipway and walked along the sea wall towards the sea hide and it was very cold along there , i had close views of a Stonechat which was nice.
Stonechat.
I sheltered out of the wind by the hide and had a surprise as a Bar Tailed Godwit flew in front of me and briefly landed before flying off down Faversham Creek , a very welcome year tick , there were approx: 200 Avocet , 200 Dunlin , plus smaller numbers of Curlew , Ringed Plover , Redshank and a single Grey Plover , a scan over Harty Ferry area produced several Shelduck in flight and a single female Marsh Harrier , a couple of Brent Geese flew down the Swale as i made my back to my car , i bumped into Murray Wright and Geoff Burton along the access road and Murray very kindly pointed out a couple of areas to check for Little Owl and although they were not showing this time i will try again .
