Counting Crows

Kingsdown beach was inundated with a piece of wood today, part of a cargo that was washed overboard down the coast. Most of it ended up on the beaches of Thanet.

It was a morning of counting - first from Deal Pier with the inimitable Dylan, who had managed 250+ Great Crested Grebes floating past by the time I arrived. A Kittiwake created some photo-opportunities by standing on the flagpole (a traditional Kittiwake perch) .....
....and by attracting the attention of local gulls when it took a large fish.
Moving along the coast to the undercliff, it was clear that there were far more auks and divers to be seen flying south, confirming the expected flightpath from mid-channel past South Foreland.
Continuing to count, I timed 18 auks and 7 divers flying past in a minute, which could be unscientifically extrapolated to 1000 and 400 per hour.Not as many as yesterday (when the piermaster said he was surrounded by feeding guillemots) but plenty nonetheless.
Not many birds came close, but a few Guillemots dived nearby and one of the divers was close enough to confirm with Dr Ray's scope as a Black-Throat.
Dr Ray's equipment also came in handy when a Peregrine flew past. Tetrad counting too, there were 26 Fulmar sites occupied (compared with 16 by the breeding season last year).

Back to the counting theme, Counting Crows in the US refers to the British equivalent of counting magpies - One for sorrow, two for joy / Three for girls and four for boys / Five for silver, six for gold / Seven for a secret never to be told.
There were five crows on the range today......I'm waiting.......

Finally back to the garden for an hour's RSPB Garden Bird Count. Not too impressive, but two Coal Tits (one continental, one British) and a party of nine Long-Tailed Tits enjoyed the patent suet recipe.

Oh me oh my, there's a light in the sky

The dawn sky had its angry eyes on this morning.
The sun rose under the clouds over France.
In the afternoon, one of the Sandwich Bay Short-Eared Owls was hunting between the scrape and the golf course, wafting over the scrub in search of prey.
Occasionally it came to rest on a post, then up it went again, silently quartering the ground, always looking down, swooping and turning effortlessly with its long wings.

A wander around North Kent

A strangely unsatisfying morning (probably the cold wind, for which I was not adequately prepared) at least gave us an overflying Lesser Spotted Woodpecker and three clumps of Butcher's Broom of which only one had a few berries remaining.
These were in Park Wood near Challock - the pecker had been calling up in the canopy, and was eventually kind enough to show.
Then a short drive across to Oare, even though the tide was out. We had distant views of two Common Buzzards, three Red-Breasted Mergansers, 64 Avocets and a Great Northern Diver, the last-named struggling with a large flatfish while envious gulls circled above.

Dunlin on the Swale mud

The 64 Avocets, and a flock of Brent Geese flying upriver. One lone goose seemed to look different so was tracked along the Swale, but the possibility of a Black Brant was quickly discounted, and eventually we concluded that it was not a PaleBelly either, and that the bright light had made its flanks seem whiter than normal for a DarkBelly.

More exciting are the latest addiotions to the Flicker Photos of the Kingsdown Sherpa....stunning!

Green shoots of recovery

A walk in the woods today, to see if there are any green shoots of recovery from the cold snap yet.
Broom was flourishing in a clearing,beyond a pile of logs thoughtfully left as a bug habitat. I could find no Butcher's Broom though.
A clump of Caper Spurge looked bright in the winter sunshine, and further on a shoot still bearing its poisonous berries was found.Plenty of blurred life, including singing and chasing Marsh Tits, Nuthatches, GreatSpots and a Treecreeper.

On the way home, I stopped by the row of twisted gnarled old Sweet Chestnuts, and finally (checking out the undercliff) I came across three bright shoots of early spring - Coltsfoot.

Drelingore

An early cold-morning visit to the twin areas of Russell Gardens and Bushy Ruff revealed a fascinating phenomenon - the water that runs through them is warmer than the air, so a mist rises from the surface.
The water emerges from the ground a short distance up the valley, from the chalk which keeps it at a reasonably constant 10° C (about 12° warmer than the ambient temperature). Understandably, this is appreciated by the local gulls and ducks, along with bread brought by visitors.
At times of high rainfall and a high water table, a winterbourne stream called the Drelingore appears further up the Alkham valley and runs into Bushy Ruff. This only happens infrequently, perhaps once every 10 years, or as Leland explained 'ones in a vj or vij yeres brasted owt so abundantly that a great part of the water cummeth into Dovar streme'.
This is one of the tributaries of the River Dour which reaches the sea at Dover, and here has been dammed to make an attractive formal and informal gardens.

Tree Sparrow

A post from the North Downs reminded me of visits that we received from Tree Sparrows in the hard winters of the mid-1980s. We lived in a little mid-terraced house, but put out seed on the snow and they found it.

That was in the days before Cettis Warblers, Little Egrets and overwintering Chiffchaffs and Blackcaps, and when photos were taken with trusty Zenith E cameras. This one was probably in 1982/3.

Chav Warblers in Thanet

Botany Bay reinforced its position as my favourite birding location today, as it gave up two (not one, two) Dartford Warblers - my first ever. Not only did they show, but they stayed showing for a short while, in bright winter sunshine.
I caught sight of a long tail attached to a small bird that flew past us, and sure enough it was a Chav Warbler (sorry if that's politically incorrect - coincidentally we chatted to some birders from Dartford during the morning). This bird seemed to be duller and to have a shorter tail than the second which appeared a little further on.
There was also a Stonechat.

While at Foreness it would have been remiss not to count the wintering Purple Sandpipers - 29 on the steps and another 9 roosting in the shelter of human footprints on the beach.
There was the usual split of about 100 Oystercatchers in one roost and a similar number of Sanderlings on the other (spot the odd one out).
Plenty of Grey Plovers were dotted about on the beach, and and there were 33 Golden Plovers on the clifftop grass.An earlier visit to Pegwell was pleasant, with Dunlin especially close as the tide rose, and there was an Avocet further out. I consulted the excellent Handbook of Pegwell Bay Birds to see if this was an unusually early date for an Avocet, but it appears not.