SHADES OF GREY

A beautiful sunny sunday morning on Langdon Cliffs would have been uneventful if it had not been for the arrival of a superb great grey shrike.It was first sighted briefly before taking flight but was relocated a few minutes later it hung around for about ten minutes before flying towards the radar masts at Swingate.

GREAT GREY SHRIKE in LANGDON HOLE

GREAT GREY SHRIKE.
While on the subject of great grey birds a visit to Dunge last thursday left me with a conundrum,assuming that a great egret had been photographed from the path near the raptor viewing mound ,I thought no more about it and went on to see the long tailed duck from the Hanson hide;when the pictures were downloaded however it was clear something was not quite right and I think this bird is a leucistic grey heron.

GREY HERON?? Any thoughts?
The yellow legged gull had been seen near the fishing boats earlier and had paraded on a nearby roof by doing a goose step.

GOOSE STEP GULL

HERRING GULL A5WR AT DUNGENESS

GREY PARTRIDGES (ancient highway)

ROUGH LEGS AT THE ROUGHS

As most of you will know a Rough Legged Buzzard has taken up residence at the old gravel works at West Hythe opposite the Roughs appropriately enough.The Roughs are a rough area of ground below the escarpment west of Hythe which are subject to regular landslips and have never been built on for obvious reasons,apart from that is a wartime listening ear which can still be seen but is fenced off these days as it is in a parlous state.I digress,back to the buzzard,while on the phone to Ian Roberts as to where best to see the bird I turned around and there it was 100 yards behind me.
When I found it again it was sat on one of the big earth pyramids being formed on the site,it soon took off and was lost to view.

the first encounter
After this it was a case of wait and see and eventually it came round again,hovering kestrel like and seemingly finding plenty of prey,which is usually small mammals.

The feathered legs from which the name derives can be seen here.

Then it was back to earth again.

LIGHT SNOW AT THE HOE

It was  very quiet  at Samphire Hoe today,hardly any visitors,just me and the sheep for company,the poor old ram has done himself a mischief and has gone lame,no fun for him for a while.
Blackbirds,redwings robins and song thrushes filled the bushes half a dozen stonechats were found, two flocks of siskins flew east and solitary wheatear and black redstart were on the sea wall.Best of all though was a snow bunting picking about the rock sea lavender on the wall.It was so dull I hadn`t bothered to take my camera out so I hightailed it back to the office picked up my trusty nikon and went back to the wall,luckily the male bird was still happily feeding,Ipushed the ISO up to 800 before getting a reasonable shutter speed and clicked off a few shots before leaving him to his seed eating.

SNOW BUNTING

BLACK REDSTART.

THE HOE WILL BE CLOSED TOMORROW (WEDNESDAY) AND THURSDAY 10TH FOR ESSENTIAL TRAFFIC LIGHT WORK.

INTO THE GLOOM

Hibernation appears to be quite a good option at the moment,sleep thro the winter and wake up when the sun shines in the spring,I hate these dull gloomy november days.
The last week hasn`t been all doom and gloom however with a good number of birds at SAM HO ,the glossy ibis showed up at Stodmarsh on wednesday and the curlew sandpiper at sandwich was good,the owls didn`t  show up on the ancient highway,that was not good.
The harbour sheltered several med gulls on friday with a guillemot,10 turnstones  an arctic tern and a kingfisher.One of the Mediterranean gulls unfortunately had a fishing hook in its mouth!
ATTENTION ALL ANGLERS TAKE YOUR BAITED HOOKS HOME WITH YOU!!!

DAWN TRADER IN THE CHANNEL

WHEATEAR ON THE WALL

SEA SLATER A PRE HISTORIC CREATURE FOR HALLOWEEN?

A DISTANT GLOSSY IBIS (For Steve Ashton)

FOX  on the mud from the FEAST HIDE at Stodmarsh

LITTLE GREBE

FEMALE SHOVELLER

SELECTION OF COLOURFUL FUNGII

CURLEW SANDPIPER

GREY PARTRIDGE

GREY PARTRIDGES

MED GULL with fish hook.

TURNSTONE

One of ten on the Prince of Wales pier

I do not know what fate awaits this young gull but it is so easily avoidable by not leaving discarded fishing hooks laying around on the beach or piers.

AUTUMNAL MOTHS

A couple of female snow buntings in the stubble on the cliffs were the highlight of sunday morning  and a rough legged buzzard floating over Lydden hill on sunday afternoon was even better.
The moth trap hasn`t been out lately but the last few nights its been on and here are some of the autumn favourites.

GREEN BRINDLED CRESCENT

BLAIRS SHOULDER KNOT

FEATHERED THORN

YELLOW LINED QUAKER

NOVEMBER MOTH

Wonderful names as ever.

STRANGERS ON THE SHORE

After the hectic week in Norfolk it was back to the patch on monday,with an after lunch stroll around Langdon cliffs,nothing much to report from there,but a call from Steve Ray had me scurrying down to the Prince of Wales pier where he had seen a GREY PHALAROPE,it was not immediately evident when I got there,but it soon appeared again ,I had forgotten how small they are,superficially like a tiny black headed gull,it was in the shadow of the pier picking morsels of food from the surface.The birds breed in Iceland and spend the winter at sea off the coast of west Africa.

GREY PHALAROPE

GREY PHALAROPE is also known as RED PHALAROPE as in breeding plumage it becomes a deep terracotta red.
A single PURPLE SANDPIPER was also found on the beach opposite the Gateway flats,this bird also breeds in Iceland and other Arctic regions,it spends the winter in small groups feeding amongst rocks and seaweed covered surfaces,there used to be a group that regularly wintered on the hoverpad but this has diminished over the last few years,now preferring the new rock sea defences at Hythe.

PURPLE SANDPIPER.

A few bits and pieces from Tuesday at Samphire Hoe;

PIED WAGTAIL resting on the wall.

WHEATEAR migration has slowed to a trickle now.

ROCK PIPIT numbers are building up,can reach 30-40 birds in the winter.

GOLDFINCH flocks have been on the move recently foraging on teasles and thistles.

The troglodyte LITTLE OWL has returned to its cave on the cliffs.

A less pleasing find on the beach near the clock tower today was a dead gannet,there was no obvious injury  so it may have died of starvation,but that is not certain.

This gannets 6 foot wing span will never take to the air again.

The gannets large webbed feet are lined with pale green ribs,something you rarely see.

The more I look at this poor beast it does look quite emaciated but that may be because it was very wet.