Saturday 10 November

Reculver Country Park

Leader Robin Smith

This walk was on the day following the tidal surge down the North Sea with the

prospect of it bringing in some interesting birds. Alas, it was not to be, but it was a

pleasant enough stroll along the sea front towards Thanet. A select half dozen

attended and we had reasonable views of Brent geese, linnets, stonechats and close

ups of sanderling, turnstone and grey plover.

Highlight of the day proved to be a couple of snow bunting that we caught up with

along the stretch of grassy shingle and followed them all the way back to the twin

towers. By this time the weather had deteriorated bringing the walk to a somewhat

premature end.

Robin Smith

Sunday 9 December

Mote Park

Leader Robin Smith

This was a late addition to the programme to replace the cancelled Riverside Country

Fayre. I left a nice warm duvet to be at the park in time-to greet the hordes of keen

birdwatchers anxious to avoid the Christmas shopping.

45 minutes later I left a cold, wet, bedraggled and miserable soul when nobody turned

up. No doubt there were loads of mega rarities lurking in the bushes just waiting to be

seen but we will never know!

Robin Smith

Saturday 5 January

Riverside Country Park

Leader Carole Nixon

Despite torrential rain on the previous two days, we arrived at Riverside on a bright,

sunny and windy morning. As high tide was at l().30am, we decided to walk to Eastcourt

Meadows, towards Gillingham, first. Unfortunately for us, there were three wildfowlers

with their dogs shooting on Copperhouse Marsh (quite legally) so we decided to turn

tail and go through Sharp’s Green and out to Horrid Hill. 

The hulks and moored boats at Sharp’s Green gave us good views of ringed plovers, dunlins, lapwings and as the tide advanced, good sightings of turnstones.  We had a youngster

with us, so we walked along the boardwalk to show him the resident robins, chaffinches

and blackbirds. Unfortunately, a rabbit hopped off before the little boy caught a glance

of him.

We braced ourselves against the wind, and walked towards the point at Horrid Hill.

It was not going to be a bird full—walk and at 12noon we retreated, some of us going

home, others going for a hot drink in the cafe.

There were twelve of us in the party and we all had good sightings of the following

birds: ringed plovers, grey plovers, lapwings, turnstones, dunlins, teals, shelducks,

Brent geese, redshanks, oystercatchers, avocets (at a distance, thanks to the two

‘scopes) black-headed gulls, collared dove, robins, chaffinches, blackbirds and

dunnocks. 

Carole Nixon.

Sunday 20 January

Seaton Pits

Leader Robin Smith

On a beautiful sunny Sunday morning we were drum-rolled by a greater-spotted

woodpecker across the damp meadow towards the flooded pit. I was personally quite

excited, as this was only the second proper trip I had done with the Group. The last

being Glen’s trip to Pulborough Brooks} in the summer, which I enjoyed immensely and

was hoping this was going to be as good. Trevor was straight off the mark with a grey

wagtail, which I missed.

The pit, on arrival did not disappoint, with a large number of ducks - tufted, shoveler,

teal and wigeon.  Two personal firsts, a stunning drake smew and his mate — all scopes

were on him as he dived and bobbed on the far side near a bank-side weeping willow,

and not far away was the other, the magnificent goldeneye, a beautiful drake, close

enough for most of us to see his lovely yellow eyes. 

Onwards we trekked and as we emerged into the second field a well-trained eye

spotted a distant marsh harrier being mobbed by various corvids. We followed the

line of the brook and scanned the horizon for anything of interest. A kingfisher was

seen perched a little downstream and most of us were treated to the classic streak of

vivid blue as it made off and disappeared round a bend. 

A green woodpecker loped across and into the woods and as we gazed skywards a

largish raptor flapped across from left to right, I thought it was a sparrowhawk, but

the more knowledgeable in the group said it was a peregrine. I have seen hundreds

of sparrowhawks but never the magnificent falcon so I began to wonder how many

of my sparrowhawks had been peregrines over the years. Oh well, another confirmed

first for me, whatever, I was very happy. 

Almost immediately as we broke off from this sighting a large and impressive raptor

hove into view, seen at first through the bare boughs of the lakeside trees. Over the

top of us it soared. It was a marsh harrier probably the one sighted previously. We

craned our heads as it passed over, then dropped to bush height a 100 metres away

and quartered for ten or so minutes. In the bright sun the birds’ cream crown and

shoulder flashes showed up as well as any I have seen, confirming it was a female or

juvenile.  Buoyed by an excellent morning thus far we started to retrace our steps.

The shallow brook was gin clear, with its pebbly bottom and bubbly meanderings; it

only lacked Tarka gambolling through it. Otters are on the up so maybe one day, who

knows.

Someone heard the metallic trill of a grey wagtail from across the stream and within a

moment or two it was well spotted. Over on the far bank, about ten metres away, it

was foraging along the margin, poking its thin bill through the top half centimetre of

liquid mud in its quest for invertebrates. Popular opinion had it as a female; even in

her winter plumage her yellowness was a joy. Supposedly shy, she obviously did not

read the same books as me, for she flitted up and down the brook for a good 15 minutes,

sometimes coming onto our side and feeding within a few feet of us.

What a way to finish the morning trip to Seaton! I would like to thank Sue and Robin for

showing me another part of our beautiful county I was not aware of, not to mention my

firsts.

David Saunders

Sunday 10 February

Elmley RSPB Reserves/Capel Fleet

Leader Sue Carter

The morning was very frosty but atmospheric and the reserve looked wonderful. However

by 11.00am we were all feeling decidedly overdressed as the temperature rose and we

started disrobing in the Swale Hide, whilst watching numerous great-crested grebes

on a rising tide.

Earlier we had taken the narrow path to the Counterwall Hide and had been treated

to an aerial ballet by the display flight of two short-eared owls.  We were close enough

to hear the strange call made by one of the owls, something that I personally hadn’t

experienced before. Whilst in the hide we were lucky enough to see a spotted redshank

drop in and start feeding.

From the Southfleet Hide we had excellent views of pintail, shoveler, gadwall, teal,

turnstone and both bar-tailed and black-tailed godwits. We also saw a merlin sitting on

a bank with prey, but it was a long way off.

There was plenty of water on the reserve and huge flocks of wigeon and lapwing. It was

also nice to see good numbers of skylarks, reed buntings and stonechats and the little owl

didn’t let us down either.  He, or she, obligingly posed in the oak tree near the farm on

our return to the car park.

Some of the group decided to leave for Sunday dinner, but the rest of us went on to

Capel Fleet for a real raptor feast! We saw many female marsh harriers, two ringtail hen

harriers and a huge female peregrine on a post, a common buzzard on another post and a rough-legged buzzard in flight.  There was also a large flock of golden plover. 

Not a bad day at all with 24 participants and 56 species seen, of which eight were birds

of prey (including kestrel and sparrowhawk) and two were owls. We also saw several

lovely hares and one very inquisitive stoat!

Sue Carter

PUBLIC EVENTS

Saturday 16 to Sunday 24 February

Aren’t Birds Brilliant, Riverside Country Park

It was Saturday and Des and I were two of the volunteers on duty at the Aren’t Birds

Brilliant event.

We arrived at l0.00am, the weather was sunny but there was a very strong, cold wind

blowing so no possibility of erecting the promised tent. The tide was already far out,

with few birds in sight. David James, who organised the event, had set up the telescopes

on Horrid Hill where there was plenty of “passing trade” mostly in the form of dog walkers.

Many people stopped to look through the ‘scopes but it was too

cold to stop for much of a “chat” so recruitment was difficult.

Carol Donaldson provided us with much appreciated hot drinks throughout the day. When

we left at 4.00pm the water was still a narrow line on the horizon.

Our next sortie was on the Wednesday, the tide, joy of joy was well in, but the mist was

rather too thick to see anything much at all, but later in the morning the mist retreated

and there were plenty of birds to see and hear. ‘Scopes ? at both ends of Horrid Hill and

from the far end some of us were lucky enough to see a flock of a couple of hundred

avocets, quite a sight!  During the week 18 people were recmited to the RSPB, 57 species

of birds were seen, including redshank, curlew, Mediterranean gull, avocet, marsh harrier,

dunlin, oystercatchers.

Overall 1735 people stopped to look through the ‘scopes’ and over £50.00 in donations

were received.