The unrelenting easterly winds continue to chill us all,at least we can put extra layers on or stay indoors,spare a thought for our early summer migrants such as wheatears,sandwich terns and sand martins how do they survive?
Tuesday morning at Samphire Hoe gave me my first wheatear of the year,seemingly finding tasty morsels around the main car park.
The sea provided most interest with a steady stream of birds moving east into the teeth of the wind.
Gannets,sandwich terns,red throated divers,kittiwakes, great crested grebes the usual gulls and cormorants and a single black throated diver.
A WINDSWEPT RED THROATED DIVER
A male black redstart was uncooperative and was not popular with the local stonechats.
BLACK REDSTART IN ACTION
SANDWICH TERN
SAMPHIRE HOE and Paul Holt also turned up the goods today when he found a BLUETHROAT in scrub around the back car park.
BLUETHROAT
The bluethroat is a rare passage migrant in Britain in spring on its journey to northern europe where it breeds among willows and birch forests.Expert opinion was that this was a first year bird,it was also a first for me in UK.
Nice shots of the Bluethroat Phil. Hope it stays on a while.
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