9th October 2021 : Shuart
Arctic Warbler
After spending an hour or so early morning checking through the bushes at Langdon Cliffs with little reward other then a single Black Redstart , 5+ Siskins & several Chiffchaff plus a single Reed Warbler news reached us that an Arctic Warbler had been seen at Shuart, after the 2nd report came out that it was still present and showing well the decision was made to head there.
Great looking bird.
After abit of a run around we eventually managed to see the Arctic Warbler very well later in the afternoon after a failed first attempt in the morning , very long supercilium extending beyond the ear coverts, noticable wing bar with a very faint smaller second wing bar were all noticable.
We heard it call on one occasion whilst we were there , it was very active feeding in the sycamore tree.
Arctic Warbler.
We then headed to North Foreland in Thanet to try and see the Desert Wheatear which we had missed earlier in the day (2nd time lucky on both birds today !!).
Desert Wheatear.
It's been quite sometime since i last saw a Desert Wheatear so i was really happy to see this bird, they are truly cracking looking birds and certainly one of my favourite Wheatears.
Desert Wheatear.
Long-Toed Stint.
Plans were put into place to go on Sunday if the bird had stayed through Saturday which thankfully it did, so an early morning trip with RR & AE on Sunday morning was made, as we arrived in the car park at 7.30am the news was positive , it was roosting on the Eastern Reedbed.
Long legged.
We reached the Eastern reedbed and viewing was very difficult as there were only a few small gaps to see where the Long-Toed Stint was roosting unless you were 7 foot tall and could see over the reed bed.
I had very unsatisfactory views of what would be a new species for me and i could not add that to my life list on those views, eventually it flew towards and landed on a small island on Astley Lake where everyone managed to get really great views of this very educational bird.
Long-Toed Stint.
Really pleased to finally see this great bird well enough to clinch the id features that make this a Long-Toed Stint.
We also saw a flock of 80+ Pink Footed Geese fly overhead plus we heard several Bearded Tits, 1 Kingfisher & 2 Lesser Redpoll.
Pink Footed Geese.
