Bonapartes Gull note the all black bill.
I headed to Oare Marshes yesterday 30th June and was hoping to see the Bonapartes Gull , well after a short while i picked it out quite near the road , its been a couple of weeks since i last saw this bird and it has much more black colouration on the head .
Note the pink legs , ( dark red on Black .H.Gull ).
The Bonapartes Gull rested up on the spit near the pull in for a while preening , this is a really dainty looking gull and well worth a look if you have not been for it yet , hide tide is probably the best chance of seeing it as it roosts on the east flood.
Sedge Warbler.
This Sedge Warbler was singing and preforming well in a nearby hedge by the lay by , i decided to walk around to the west hide , just before i went i saw a really close Grey Heron .
Stunning Grey Heron.
And then i saw 3 Sandwich Terns flying overhead , i then walked around towards the west hide and met Murray on route and whilst chatting 7 full adult summer Med Gulls flew high overhead , there were plenty of Common Whitethroat in the area and then we saw a Hobby circling around and Murray pointed out a distant Peregrine on a pylon , i said my goodbyes to Murray and then headed to the hide and i did not really add anything from here and decided to head back to the east flood and do a circuit around to see whats about .
Summer plumage Ruff .
I tried to relocate the stunning plumaged Ruff i saw earlier and it had moved onto a small island in the middle of the flood , this is an amazing plumaged bird , there were 250+ Black Tailed Godwits on the flood with lesser numbers of Avocets which were well represented , there was a scattering of Redshank and Lapwing around and everywhere i looked there seemed to be Little Egrets , after a short stay in the hide on the east flood where i could here a Lesser Whitethroat calling behind the hide , on my way out i saw this really cute Greylag gosling all on its own near the hide .
Greylag gosling.
I headed around towards the sluice and along the creek , I added Marsh Harrier and another Med Gull flew over the flood , there were plenty of Bearded Tits around the fringes of the flood , the most i have seen here in awhile , I bumped into Chidders and whilst we were talking he pointed out 2 more Hobby on the other side of the flood , we then carried on with our walk to the sea hide and back along the Swale adding plenty of birds as we went , we did see a probable Small Blue butterfly along the sea wall however it never stayed still long enough to be sure.
There were several Black Headed Gulls out on the exposed mud plus a couple of Curlew flew along before landing out of sight , then we were soon back at the cars and ended a really good birding session at Oare .
This weeks Quiz is proving to be a real challenge with only 3 correct answers so far , don't forget you can have as many guesses as you want , so good luck and don't worry if you get it wrong i will only post names of correct guesses .
