Brook to Reculver - 09/10/18

I had a very busy day at work today so thought I would have a walk after work. It was a beautiful afternoon, sunny with a breezy southerly wind. I haven’t walked from Brook for ages so thought I would give it a go. It turned out to be surprisingly quiet for birds. There were good numbers of birds flying over high, calling, but I am so rusty on calls that for much of the time I didn’t know what was calling. I am going to need lots of practice to be able to get better at calls again. There were several Common Darter and Migrant Hawker’s on the wing. I am going to miss the dragonflies and butterflies.

Common Darter

Migrant Hawker

There were the usual birds on the way to Reculver but not the numbers, or variation, that perhaps I had hoped for. A Collared Dove watched me warily when I reached the trees at the caravan park and I had a Brambling fly west.

Collared Dove

I headed along the seawall and had a look to see what I could see on the falling tide. A Little Egret flew in to feed and a very smart Meadow Pipit posed for me at the pumping station.

Meadow Pipit

The definite highlight of the afternoon was seeing a Short-eared Owl. They are such a joy to watch and I felt so lucky to see it. Unfortunately it remained distant, hunting along the far green bank but gave some nice views in the sunshine. It disturbed a Little Egret at one point and regularly disturbed clouds of Linnets and several Redshank.

Short-eared Owl

10 Oytercatcher and 15 Redshank were feeding on the exposed shore and 1 Curlew. I also had 5 Sandwich Tern feeding offshore as well. 4 Grey Heron were scattered around and a couple had a dust up at one point. I finished with a nice view of one of the Grey Heron silhouetted against the sea.

Grey Heron

Even though I did not have long this afternoon, it was nice to be out and I really enjoyed watching the Short-eared Owl.

Birds seen on this visit included: 3 Blue Tit, 1 Robin, 3 Chiffchaff, 1 Wren, 20 Meadow Pipit, 2 Kestrel, 1 Goldfinch, 1 Reed Bunting, 4 Mute Swan, 1 Brambling west,  3 Skylark, 2 Chaffinch, 2 Magpie, 3 Blackbird, 2 House Sparrow, Starlings, 5 Collared Dove, 3 Sandwich Tern, 1 Short-eared Owl, 3 Little Egret, 4 Grey Heron, 1 Curlew, 7 Oystercatcher, 8 Redshank, 6 Turnstone. Common Darter and Migrant Hawkers were also on the wing.