11th November 2021
Reculver Car Park
Pied Wheatear
We spent the morning on Sheppy checking the bushes at Leysdown for migrants without success however there were plenty of Finches moving overhead, Siskin, Lesser Redpoll & Chaffinch all in double figures.
We had a look for the Shorelarks and saw 4 fly up from the car park near Neptunes cafe and they flew inland to feed in the fields.
A walk out to the Blockhouse at Shellness produced more flyover Finches and a single Brambling in the car park the best of it.
Pied Wheatear
We decided to head to Swalecliffe and look for the Black Guillemot (A rare bird in Kent) which had been reported as showing well all morning.
Well despite scanning the sea for nearly an hour we had no luck , we were joined by Frank & Tom.C, plus Andrew Lipczynski but with the tide being out we could not locate the Black Guillemot.
Then Frank informed us that either a Pied or Black Eared Wheatear had just been found on the rocks at Reculver car park, we all abandoned our search for the BG and headed straight to Reculver.
Well 15 minutes later we arrived at Reculver and had great views of the now confirmed Pied Wheatear !!!
Here are a selection of photos taken by AE :
Pied Wheatear.
Congrats to Matt Hindle for a great find and putting the news out for us all to enjoy, this was a new bird for my Kent Bird List (354th).
Really enjoyed watching the Pied Wheatear feeding on small insects on the rocks , then news came out that the Black Guillemot was again at Swalecliffe on the incoming tide.
I only had about an hours light left so decided to try again for the BG, I arrived on site and there was not a birder in sight to get any info from , i just scanned the sea with no luck and was joined by another birder, we decided to split up to broaden our search.
I went further east towards the wooden bridge and scanned again and this time i got lucky and found the 1st winter Black Guillemot , great scope views were obtained and this was my 2nd new Kent bird of the day (355th) !!!!
Black Guillemot Photo by Frank Cackett
I was soon joined by other birders including Frank Cackett who kindly let me use his photos on my blog (Thanks Frank).
Black Guillemot.
