JANUARY 1st 2022
St.MARGARET'S at CLIFFE
First site visited today was Bockhill Farm Wood and we heard the wintering Hume's Leaf Warbler several times before we managed any sort of view, i did see it quite well on a couple of occasions but sadly never managed a photo.
Other highlights here were 2 Raven over the cliffs plus Gannet, Fulmar , Razorbill & Guillemot on the sea.
SANDWICH BAY & WORTH MARSHES
Velvet Scoter
We left Bockhill Farm and headed to Sandwich Bay , despite a good search we were unable to find the Snow Bunting this time, however we were more than compensated with a fine Velvet Scoter quite close in on the sea.
Velvet Scoter.
Driving along the Ancient Highway on our way to Worth Marshes we were also very happy to see 5 Grey Partridge , sadly a hard species to see in Kent these days.
Grey Partridge (photo from 2021)
It didn't take long to connect with the unringed White Stork at Worth Marshes as it happily and successfully fed in the fields near the 'Round House'.
White Stork with a Grey Heron
We then headed to Swalecliffe in the hope of connecting with the recently re found Black Guillemot.
We had a scan over the sea and picked out 10+ Red Breasted Mergansers , 3 Eider, 1 Great Northern Diver, several Red Throated Divers & Great crested Grebes.
We bumped into Andre Farrar who kindly informed us (thankyou Andre) the Black Guillemot & Slavonian Grebe were showing further down the beach nearer to Hampton.
We soon headed to the area and had decent scope views of this rare Kent bird plus the Slavonian Grebe was also great to see.
Black Guillemot (photo by FC)
OARE MARSHES
Barn Owl
We ended a really great days birding at Oare Marshes and had decent views of a Barn Owl, other highlights included a Greenshank in the creek , 30+ Pintail on the East Flood and a high flying Cattle Egret over the East flood heading towards Uplees.
