May

              Britain's best site for Alpine Accentor

         Total number of species for the year 134

29th

Only a trickle of Swallows and Swifts SW but the day was brightened with 2

Honey Buzzards coming in and moving off NW at 09.15 and 10.00.

                               Male Honey Buzzard  - Phil Chantler

23rd

On a very pleasant sunny day Brendan and Phil flushed our first ever spring Dotterel as they walked across the big field, unfortunately it disappeared out to sea. Other birds of note were 2 Wheatears(male and female) and a Ringed Plover.JRC

22nd

In the thick mist the only notable bird seen was a Reed Warbler which was new for the year.JRC

16th

A little disappointing today with only a small inward movement of Swallows and a Serin on the cliff-top, possibly the same one as yesterday.

15th

A seawatch from 05:30-07:30 produced 2 Great Northern Divers, a Manx Shearwater,

29 Sandwich Terns and 3 Razorbills flying upchannel. We then gathered on the cliff-top, where in a light north westerly, we had a good movement of birds from across the Channel. Notably a Serin, Black Redstart, Wheatear, Spotted Flycatcher, a male Honey Buzzard at 09:15, Marsh Harrier at 11:00, a Turtle Dove and several hirundines.

Later Phil had another Honey Buzzard, a female, at Langdon at 12:45 being mobbed by corvids.

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9th

Seawatching was reasonable from 06:30- 08:30 but by 10:00 all movement had stopped.

However, in that time, we had 1 Red-throated and 2 Black-throated Divers, 124 Gannets, 18 Common Scoter, 5 Shelduck, 23 Bar-tailed Godwit, 1 Whimbrel, 30 Dunlin, 1 Grey Plover, 3 Turnstone, 2 Common Sandpiper, 3 Sanderling, 2 Arctic and 4 Pomarine Skuas, 139 Sandwich Terns, 12 Commic Terns and 1 Little Tern. JRC

8th

In 2 hours of seawatching we had 2 Red-throated Divers, 145 Common Scoters,

11 Dunlin, 4 Turnstones, 41 Bar-tailed Godwits, 22 Whimbrels, 17 Sandwich Terns, 4 Little Terns, 10 Common Terns ,13 Arctic Terns moving upchannel and a Marsh Harrier coming in off the sea. JRC

3rd

A seawatch from 05.30-10.30 produced very little apart from a small movement north of Sandwich, Arctic and Commic Terns, a Black-throated Diver, c.25 Gannets, 8 Auks, a Knot and a Great Skua. However it was very pleasing to see 2 Harbour Porpoises quite close in the Bay after the disastrous winter when at least 4 were found dead on the beaches between Sandwich and Kingsdown.(Nigel, Phil, Jack)

2nd

Only a Wheatear on the cliff-top.

1st

The month started with a small influx of c. 175 hirundines, mainly Swallows, as well as

7 Swifts and our first Hobby of the year. A Red Kite was seen hunting over the Freedown

at 06.40 and then again over the Golf Course two hours later. Other birds of note were

5 Yellow Wagtails, 2 Wheatears, 15 Whitethroats, 10 Lesser Whitethroats, 4 Blackcaps,

1 Willow Warbler and a Tree Sparrow. (Brendan, Nigel, Phil, Richard, Simon, Jack)

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This interesting juvenile (2nd calendar year) Peregrine present on Saturday morning, left us contemplating racial possibilities (or hybrid parentage...). We emailed Andrea Corso for his views. He replied thus;

"rather interesting...and I would guess it could be called calidus-type, however doesn’t readily stand out as a very typical calidus birds as they usually have even blonder and more extensively pale crown, much more Lanner like in fact!   Also they have whiter ground colour of underparts and more rusty underwing coverts, also more rusty and obviously barred uppertail coverts and tail bars wider and more demarked! Though, I do not know about the huge variability of peregrinus up there in UK and so can't 100% exclude one of those odd juveniles!"

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