As I had a day off today I thought I would try a walk from Chambers Wall to Shuart via the embankment. The day was overcast with a light wind and sunny intervals and became increasingly warmer as the visit went on. I was greeted by a Wren singing beautifully and giving the singing Blackcap, Whitethroat and Sedge Warbler a run for their money. I tried for a photo and, though it is not great, I can hear the Wren singing when I look at it so it makes a good memory shot.The air was alive with bird song.
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| Wren |
As I headed down the track a pair of Tufted Duck flew down the river and a Pied Shieldbug caught my eye, as did a Picture-winged Fly.
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| Pied Shieldbug |
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| Picture-winged Fly |
I could hear Corn Bunting calling and a small flock of 6 flew in with 2 giving some good views and one singing away out of sight.
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| Corn Bunting |
I was pleased to see my first damselfly of the year. I could only get photo's from the one angle before it flew but I was pleased to get them. I could see from the presence of a Coenagrion spur that it was not a Common Blue so assumed Azure until I got home and looked at the photos. From what I could see in my books and then from looking on the internet it appeared to instead be a blue form female Variable Damselfly, which would be unusual for here but I could not manage to make it into anything else. When I sent Chris Hindle the list of birds I had seen I also attached a photo of the damselfly, marked as Variable but that I could be wrong, and he checked with Marc Heath for me who thinks that it is, instead, probably a maturing Azure, which does indeed make much more sense. I am very grateful to both of them for their help with identifying it correctly. It was time well spent looking at Azure and Variable on the internet, as even though I got it wrong, and feel a bit stupid about that, I now know more about both of them than I did before and hopefully that will help me in the future when trying to settle on an identification, even if I still struggle with this one. I still have a tremendous amount to learn on dragonflies and damselflies but that is all part of the fun.
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| ? maturing Azure or Variable Damselfly |
I could hear a Cuckoo calling as I approached the railway crossing but I did not see it today. There were a lot of mating St Mark's Flies and I felt sorry for one pair as they bounced off my head having flown straight into me but they seemed non too perturbed as they rested briefly on the grass before flying off again.
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| mating St Mark's Flies |
A Whitethroat paused from searching for insects on an umbellifer before moving on further and bursting into song. I had a single House Martin west and small numbers of Swallow and Sand Martin in both directions.
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| Whitethroat |
I had a wader flying fairly high directly overhead and I grabbed a few shots as it went over. Against the light I could only see a silhouette and it appeared to be a plover. On lightening and cropping the photo it appears to be a summer plumaged Golden Plover which came as a nice surprise as I was expecting it to be a Grey Plover.
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| Golden Plover |
I could see the male and female Marsh Harrier on one side of the embankment and another female/immature on the other side of the embankment at the same time, all flying away from me and heading towards Reculver direction. As I carried on towards Shuart I came across a group of 3 female/immature Marsh Harriers in the air at the same time and I think these are different birds to the ones I had already seen. As I watched these I also had 2 Red Kites spiralling higher overhead and moving west.
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| Marsh Harriers |
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| Red Kite |
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| Red Kite |
It was nice to see another Mallard with youngsters down one of the dykes and this female had 6 in tow. A little further on I could see 3 Lapwing in one of the fields and a Mute Swan and Ringed Plover on the large patch of water in the next field. It made my day when I then heard the unmistakable sound of a Nightingale singing. I saw it very briefly a couple of times as it moved nearer the edge of the bush and at one point it perched briefly in the open before disappearing into cover again. I stood listening to it for a long time and it was as stunning as I remembered. I felt very privileged to hear it. it definitely made my day. The Nightingale is presumably the same one that Chris Hindle had earlier in the day. I always carry a dictaphone when birdwatching as I use it for verbally recording what I see and also for recording any songs or calls that I hear that are out of the ordinary. I could not manage a photo of the Nightingale so I used the dictaphone to record it singing. As I can not upload an audio file to the blog I have used video on the camera to video the dictaphone as it played back the recording and the camera seems to have done a good job of picking up the sound. Not an ideal solution perhaps but I thought that it was worth giving it a go to see how it worked. The video's are black as I only wanted the sound from the dictaphone so I kept the lens cap on the camera when it was recording from the dictaphone, enabling sound without a picture, and in other words giving the equivalent of an audio file.
I was sorry to have to tear myself away from the Nightingale but time was getting on so I carried on to the sea wall so that I could sit down for a bit. A female Wheatear was on the rocks and a Ringed Plover was very close to the sea wall and calling frequently.
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| Ringed Plover |
The walk back through Shuart was relatively quiet. I could hear another Cuckoo calling and 2 Cetti's Warbler were singing away. A Sparrowhawk completed a good range of raptors that I had seen today. It had turned very warm in the sheltered areas and I thought that I might see a Hairy Dragonfly but I did not manage to come across one. Butterflies were out in force and I got good views of Red Admiral. A couple of Orange Tip males were active and Peacock butterflies abounded, with the one below missing quite a chunk out of its wings. Green-veined White's were dotted around and a couple of Holly Blue were active and decidedly reluctant to settle long enough for a photo. I really hoped to see a Brimstone Butterfly but did not have any luck.
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| Peacock Butterfly |
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| Red Admiral Butterfly |
I finished the visit with 1 Red-legged Partridge and a yaffling Green Woodpecker while a Speckled Wood Butterfly flew past.
Birds seen this visit include: Blue Tits, 6 Goldfinch, 13 Reed Buntings, 39 Whitethroat, 20 Sedge Warbler, 3 Reed Warbler, 7 Wren, 6 Yellow Wagtail, 13 Blackcap, 13 Chaffinch, 5 Blackbird, Woodpiegeons, 5 Chiffchaff, 15 Sand Martin, 17 Swallow, 6 Corn Bunting, 6 Magpie, 2 Cuckoo, 28 Linnet, 2 Tufted Duck, Cormorant, Skylarks, 6 Marsh Harrier, 2 Red Kite, 1 Long-tailed Tit, 1 Golden Plover, 12 Swallow, 5 Mallard + 6 youngsters, 3 Lapwing, 2 Grey Partridge, 1 Nightingale, 3 Mute Swan, 2 Ringed Plover, 3 Cetti's Warbler, 1 Great Tit, 3 Common Buzzard, 1 House Martin, 3 Pied Wagtail, 25 House Sparrow, 1 Lesser Whitethroat, 2 Collared Dove, 1 Wheatear, Song Thrush, 2 Kestrel, Grey Heron, 1 Sparrowhawk, 5 Robin, 3 Dunnock, 1 Green Woodpecker, 1 Red-legged Partridge
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