More Arctic Skuas and Terns

Light SSW breeze freshened and drifted more west. A mixture of overcast sunny spells and the odd hail shower.

The following records are some of the sightings from today's LDBWS open event (thanks to Nick, Jean and Pete)

Arctic Skua 3 - 4

Arctic Tern 41 in 4 flocks

Sandwich Tern 15

Red-Throated Diver 3

Gannet 4

Kittiwake 38

Mediterranean gull 1 second calendar year 

Common Scoter c60

Pink Footed goose 49

Shelduck 4

Whimbrel 4

Overhead and grounded:

Lesser Redpoll 2

Tree Pipit 1

Swallow 2

Lesser Whitethroat by Half Moon Bay cafe

These c40 dark birds coming into the bay are too far for my optics to resolve any detail, but thought they must be Common Scoter (MD) (subsequently Dan advises me that they too picked these birds up and were 99% confident that they were Pink-Foot - I'll leave the clips as a reminder of how easy it is to misidentify distant stuff) Not really anything to see, but it gives a sense of the movement. On this clip at 09:35 they fly in and land on the sea.

After five minutes they take off again and head north along the Kent Channel. These shots were from the lighthouse on the south wall, and presumably part of the 60 recorded above.

South shore

The ringed male ringed  Rock Pipit was keeping guard near the lighthouse 

Common Sandpiper 1

This Common Sandpiper was near Ocean Edge slipway, just after a 
particularly heavy hail shower.

Whether it was there before the shower or forced down is unknown. Either way it decided to do a bit of feeding 

Middleton Nature Reserve

Ringing report from Alan:

Yet another frosty start. We had expected an better catch this morning than recently but it was not to be.  Six nets were set but only 8 birds were ringed, 8 retrap were were also caught:

Lesser Redpoll  2

Sedge Warbler  2 plus 3 retrap

Willow Warbler  2 retraps

Blackbird  2 retrap

Great Tit  1 retrap

Blackcap  1

Reed Warbler  1

Greenfinch  1

Reed Bunting  1

I was slightly surprised that no Whitethroats were caught but the individuals present appeared to be behaving territorially rather than moving around the reserve.

Just a quick check in the afternoon (MD)

All the regular warblers except Grasshopper and Garden heard. The only Cetti's was again the "no swimming" pond bird. 

There are several patches of Marsh Marigolds on Middleton 
The brightness of the yellow flowers was stunning in the sunshine.