Sept 07 NWKent

If you live, or for that matter visit, any site in North or West Kent then I would be delighted to hear from you! Sightings would be appreciated from Sheppey in the North to Dartford & Tunbridge Wells to the West and then back to Maidstone in the East.

Paid a visit to Erith Marshes at Crossness today. Started at the golf club and made a circuit along the Thames and then around the sewage works back to the golf club.

Highlights were a Barn Owl in the protected area and a Juv Yellow Legged Gull on the foreshore, kindly pointed out by a guy leading a visit by the London Natural History Soc. There was also an Arctic Tern amongst a number of common terns and black headed gulls but I was unable to pick this out.

Along the river; cormorant, black headed gull, lesser black backed gull, herring gull, greater black backed gull, common gull, grey heron, lapwing, mallard, gadwall, shelduck, black swan (pair), common tern, teal, redshank, curlew, pied wagtail, common sandpiper, robin, blue tit, great tit, wren, moorhen, woodpigeon, carrion crow.

Around the sewage works; (many of the above plus), greater spotted woodpecker, chaffinch, chiffchaff, barn owl, dunnock, long tailed tit, song thrush, blackbird, magpie, little grebe, mute swan, coot, canada goose, stonechat, sparrowhawk, kestrel.

A typically brief look at Pembury Waterworks produced a Green Sandpiper, 7 Mandarin, 5 Tufted Duck plus a Grey Heron flew over. On the way home from East Kent mid-afternoon there were 4 Red-legged Partridge just outside Nettlestead Green (nr East Peckham) which is quite an unusual sight in this area for me.On Friday evening as I neared home walking back from Paddock Wood station I heard a Chiffchaff calling from a nearby garden.

Thursday 27th September Shellness, Sheppey

The weather forecast produced an amazing 10 observers at Shellness, the most I have seen there for a long time. Birds seen included 81 Great Skuas, 31 Arctic Skuas,4 L. T. Skuas, 1 Fulmar,5 Manx Shearwaters, 2 Balearic Shearwaters,2 Sooties and 2 Shearwater sp. A Leach's Petrel spent 15-20 minutes feeding off the mouth of The Swale which was very considerate of it. Once again there was a flock of Pinkfeet this time c15 birds far out over the estuary to the East. A surprise for a seawatch was a Spoonbill circling around very high up,later it appeared on the mud in front of us before flying off to the NE !

(Dick Elvy with Peter Oliver,David Davenport,Brian Thomas, Barry Chambers, et al.)

the Pec Sandpiper was still at Wouldham yesterday afternoon (13:20, 26th), roosting on the grass by green diamond naigation post at high tide.

Had a trip to Riverside County Park in Gillingham yesterday to have a look at some new bins at the infocus field event and managed an hour and a half wandering out to horrid hill and back again. There wasn't much about but there were lots of redshanks, a mixed flock of swallows and house martins (about 12 - 15 birds), 3 grey plover, a single bar-tailed godwit a single whimbrel and a little egret

Early morning visit Botany Marshes Sunday, at the Northfleet end. I didn’t stray as far as the security man, with his van and dog. There were at least 3 Cetti’s, a couple of Sedge Warbler, and the usual Stonechats. Also a large high flying flock of Housemartins.

Good vis mig over the house this morning as we enjoyed a post-breakfast cup of tea. 6 Mipits, 1 Yellow Wagtail, 1 Skylark, 1 Jay, 3 Sparrowhawks, 200 House Martin, 20 Swallow and a immature YL Gull were seen.

Headed off to Cliffe soon after where we were lucky to find that the Pectoral Sandpiper had relocated to Radar Pool. This bird is nowhere near as bright as the Bough Beech bird and the white mantle and scapular lines were not easy to see. Note the typical juvenile gingery fringes to some of the remiges. The centres to the remiges and wing coverts are mainly black, unlike those of an adult.

Pectoral Sandpiper © Andrew Lawson

Ok, this shot won't win awards, but it does show that this bird is a poorly marked juvenile (before it was photoshopped, that is!)

I had good views of Short-eared Owl from the viewpoint at Capel Fleet last Saturday. My first this autumn.

Good views of a very bright juvenile Pectoral Sandpiper were had as it walked along the water’s edge of the main reservoir. 8 Mandarin also flew and a graceful and elegant, immature Arctic Tern often fed at close range. Also a Single Black Tailed Godwit.

A 3.5hr walk round my patch this morning was worth the effort, as I found two Wheatear, one wasn't in migrant alley (only the second one recorded outside of it). Also, a Sedge Warbler was given away by a scolding robin, it was amongst a load of old raspberry plants, thrown outside of the greenhouses. This was the 68th species this month. A good day total of 48 was a new high for a sept. day, and the total for all septembers is now 81. Only the chiffchaffs were found of all the resident summer warblers, and Swallows were few, with only one House Martin seen. Meadow Pipits were in evidence fying over the now cropped maize field, where 8 Yellowhammers fed along with at least a dozen Linnets. During the week (20th) I found another stonechat in migrant alley this time a female.
(Warren Baker)

The Pectoral Sandpiper was showing well, feeding up and down the shoreline,
viewed from the causeway at Bough Beech this evening. Also 1 Little Egret and 2 Green Sands.
Yesterday I noted 1 Arctic Tern, 1 Black Tailed Godwit, 1 Dunlin, 2 Green Sand and 2 Little Egrets.
(John Reeves)

The weather forecasts for Tuesday had been deteriorating markedly [from a seawatchers point of view] before the day arrived. Visibility was poor due to a bad shimmer over the sea and the light was difficult. We saw 47 Arctic Skuas, 29 Great Skuas, 1 Manx and 1 Sooty Shearwater which came in really close. There were 200 Kittiwakes, 2 Little Gulls, 14 Little Terns and quite a few Arctic Terns [I think you can always tell when the seawatching is quiet by the numberof Arctic Terns identified]. A surprise was a flock of 16 Pinkfeet which came in high from the N and contined S over The Swale.

A curious little incident happened on the sand in front of us when an Oystercatcher lunged at a Sanderling, grabbed it and gave it a good shaking.Things were pretty slow after 1pm so at 2pm we went home.

(Dick Elvy with David Davenport and Rob Clements)

I found 2 Spotted Flycatchers this am, in the grounds of hadlow college. This represents the latest recording date for this species on my patch, over the 6 years. Anymore inland records out there ?
(Warren Baker)

For those in reach of the centre of Maidstone wishing for a very clear view of a kingfisher, there is a fallen tree in the River Medway, just 5-10m downstream from the Millenium Bridge (footbridge) which links Lock meadow to the All Saints Church/Archbishop's Palace complex.
During this morning a kingfisher used this regularly and dived frequently into the river. Most unusual to have such clear views so close to the centre of town.
(John Fowler)

A foggy start to the morning, but by the time I got to ''Migrant alley'' it had burnt off - allowing me good views of a lovely male stonechat, only the 3rd record of this species in 6 years. Shortly before, a Grey wagtail flew over, another new one for the month, making the total up to 66. Surprisingly I have recorded as many species this september, as I did in May this year, which itself was a record total for that month!
(Warren Baker)

Sadly the Osprey have departed, but have been replaced by two juvenile Hen Harriers.
This morning, a juvenile female Peregrine removed a Wigeon from a flock of ducks with consummate ease. A female Merlin was sunbathing on short grass by the main track. A Hen Harrier sparred with a crow.

Numerous Hobby caught dragon-flies while several Buzzards circled above the flood. An intensive wader count produced one Curlew Sandpiper and one Dunlin.
Yesterday, a Pomarine Skua flew west down the Swale.

A really excellent afternoon at Shellness today. Firstly it was a beautiful day with crystal clear visibility and a good light and secondly the birds were exceptional. I got there about 1200, shortly after the wind veered to the NW, to find David Davenport, Peter Oliver, Brian Thomas and his friend David already there. Fortunately I had only missed a few Arctic Skuas.

The Skuas started fairly soon after as the wind veered still further N and we finished up with 117 Actic, 26 Great, 4 Pomarine and 1 definite Long-tailed. A surprise was the number of Shearwaters as Shellness is not the greatest place to see them but we saw 2 Manx, 2 very distant birds that might have been Balearics and the bird of the day [if not of the year at Shellness] a splendid Great Shearwater which came right in circled around for several minutes in front of us before flying off NE. About 10 minutes later it, or another, came in but not as close as the first time before going back. Later still we saw another very distant Shearwater that we thought was also a Great.

For the time of year there were a lot of Kittiwakes and we saw c230 and at the tail end of a flock of 22 Kittis there was a juvenile Sabines Gull which also circled round and gave us very good views. This bird [or another] was seen about 15 minutes later off Leysdown.

An afternoon visit saw that one Whinchat was still present, a female Wheatear (99 for the year) was in the fields behind Haysden Lake, two Lesser Whitethroat were in the same places as yesterday, one Garden Warbler and 20+ Chiffchaff (probably loads more than this as they seemed to be calling all over the show) and single Marsh Tit and Linnet.

9 Yellow Legged Gulls present on the Thames foreshore comprising 7 adults, 1 sub-adult and a 1st winter. The 1st winter was the first one this year.

The shot below is of an adult. Yellow Legged Gulls are longer winged than Herring Gull but this bird looks short winged. However, this bird and 4 of the other adults had lost P9-10 to moult and this made them look very short winged. "Olsen & Larsson's Gulls" states: "most had shed.....P6-8 mid-Aug; P9-10 late Sept-Oct...", however, these birds appeared to have already shed P9-P10 as well as P6-8. I reckon that the two, fresh, visible primaries are P5-6 (could be wrong). A new primary (P7?) can be seen.

1 of the other close adults still had P9-10 so looked very long winged. P5-6 were fresh whilst there was a gap where P7-8 had recently been shed. So, this bird still had the typical long wings of Yellow Legged Gull.

Yellow Legged Gull © Andrew Lawson

Untypically short winged due to primary moult. As a result, at this time of year, YLG structurally can resemble Herring Gull.

Yellow Legged Gull © James Hunter

A typical longer winged bird which had not shed the outer most primaries, P9 & P10. Shot taken two weeks ago.

Shopping is hell. Fortunately, unlike real hell, there are varying degrees of shopping hell and ‘farm shop hell’ is not as bad as ‘Bluewater shopping hell’, for example.

The pics of a (Greenland?) Wheatear below were taken at a farm shop at Foots Cray this morning. Also present were a Nuthatch and a Blackcap. Could be the first nuthatch that I’ve seen at Foots Cray.

Wheatear © Andrew lawson

Wheatear © Andrew lawson

Wheatear © Andrew lawson

Wheatear © Andrew lawson

Note the tick attached to the underside of its bill

Back on my patch today, and quite a successful morning. I recorded 48 species, a day total record for september. A Lesser Whitethroat gave a short rattle of song in the hedgerow at Poult Wood golf course,and as I passed the small lake at Cuckoo lane, at least 50 Canada geese and 7 grey lags Splashed down noisily, quite a spectacle. Nuthatch & Treecreepers called in the waterlogged wood. A lttle further on, in ashes lane I found a Marsh Tit. It called noisily and showed itself really well. maybe i'll see it in the garden, as it was only 50m from my house.

In the Coblands tree nursery a Blackcap was singing, albeit subsong, and a Whitethroat was in the same bush. Along to migrant alley, and the first Meadow Pipit of the Autumn flew low over, calling as it did so, but there were no Wheatear or whinchat.

Walking along the stream behind hadlow college, at least 4 Spotted Flycatchers fed in two large lime trees, they were also joined by a very yellow willow Warbler, the first ever recorded in september. I walked back through the college and round the maize field next to migrant alley and the green house complex. overhead at least 200 House Martins were wheeling around, until a Hobby sent them all up high and on there way.

The September total now stands at 65, a new high, beating last years 63 and its only the 9th! Good autumn birding to you all

Two Little Grebes and a Common Sandpiper were at Hawden this morning. Two Kingfishers were chasing each other around Barden Lake where eight Tufted Ducks flew off from. One Lesser Whitethroat, at least five Blackcaps, two juvenile Reed Warblers and 15+ Chiffchaff were in the Shallows, another Lesser Whitethroat was at Haysden where there was also a single Grey Wagtail and the Whinchat was still showing.

Morning visit to Cliffe Saturday. 56 species seen, highlights a Stint among the Dunlins (I think it was a Little Stint) and Snipe at Blackbarn end of Radar Pool, a Peregrine disturbing waders Yellow Legged Gull, a Yellow Wagtail at sea wall and Willow Warbler near the Radar tower.

Just back from a thouroughly pleasant trip to Cliffe, where the highlight was a nice bright juv. pectoral sandpiper, pottering around in the NW corner of the Flamingo pool. Still an impressive 640 or so avocet roosting here, as well as 2 spotted redshank, 5 greenshank, 2 green & 1 common sandpiper & 8 black-tailed godwits. One black-necked grebe out on
the pool and there's clearly been an arrival of diving duck, with over 200 pochard here. Also 4 pintail. Elsewhere, 40 dunlin, 5 curlew sandpipers, 2 little stint, 14 snipe, 1 spotted redshank, 2 greenshank & 3 green sandpiper on the Radar pool, 180 black-tailed godwit, 8 bar-tailed godwit & 10 knot on Hidden/Ski and a surprise spotted flycatcher, moving along the fence-line.
(Gordon Allison, RSPB)

One Whinchat still present this morning. It was sharing a fence with a rather jealous Robin and a single Linnet.

Friday 7th September Grain areas, Moat, Wood & Church, Smithfield Marsh, Mosco Pool.

08.50 to 11.15 hrs. 7/8 cloud. N 1. 18 oC. at 08.30 hrs. HT. 09.45 hrs. very warm. offshore mist.Mosco Pool, 08.50 to 09.00 hrs.Little Grebe - 2. Pochard - 13. Tufted - 12. Coot - 2. Moat, Wood & Church areas, 09.00 to 10.35 hrs.Sparrowhawk, but no warblers at all. 2 Red Admirals & 1 Speckled Wood. Smithfield Marsh, 10.40 to 11.15 hrs. 1 pr. Stonechats with 1 juv. also 1 Whitethroat.

19.30 to 20.00 hrs. No Ospreys present, 1 Barn Owl hunting over waste ground to SE of Pollyadams corner.

A quick visit to Haysden after work - two Whinchat showed well along the fence line and a single Lesser Black-backed Gull considered joining the 16 Herring Gulls that were in an adjacent field. A further 10 large gulls flew south and several Swallows were feeding over the fields.

Short lunchtime stroll dodging the dogs and their owners revealed 6 stonechats and 2 whinchats. And nothing else except wood pigeons and 2 crows. Probably best visited very early morning.

14.00 to 16.30 hrs. 4/8 to 2/8 cloud, NNW 2 - 3, decr. N 1. very warm. 20 oC. at 12.00 hrs. LT. 12.00 hrs. Assume all counts of species on Roas at rising tide, unless indicated. Little Egret - 4. Shelduck - 4 nw. Oystercatcher - 570. Grey Plover - 44. Golden Plover 2.Dunlin - 5. Knot - flock of 15 arrived from east. Bar Tailed Godwit- 2. Black Tailed Godwit 8.Whimbrel - 1 arrived from east. Turnstone - 1. Sandwich Tern - 10.

Twenty years ago today I saw my first Booted Warbler at Dungeness. With this in mind I made a visit to Hawden where there were seven Grey Heron and 200+ Jackdaw. Arriving before dusk would have been a better idea I suppose.

Dropped into Bromhey Farm at about 2pm to look for the Shrike but it had disappeared. However, did see 4 Greenshank, 3 Green Sandpiper and 1 juv Water Rail from the main viewing point. The bushes had many passerines including 1 Whinchat, Lesser Whitethroats, Whitethroats and Willow warblers.

I decided to give the area a thorough search and found a Wryneck at the Ernie Hemsley viewpoint which flew up onto a bush during the search.

It seemed promising when I got out of the car and saw 5 Arctic Skuas fly over but it turned out rather one dimensional. I was joined a bit later by David Davenport and we saw 90 Arctic Skuas but only 1 Great. There was a lot of high circling going on and we could see that nearly all the Arctics were adults. There were only 7 Gannets and 2 Black Terns.70 Widgeons and 12 Pintails came in but there were hardly any waders moving. About the only other birds of interest were a Peregrine and a Curlew-sandpiper.

Skuas. No doubt, as one would expect, E. Kent had far more - and, also, Grain, and E. Allhallows even (seafront & Yantlet). But I made it - without final-checking my notes - 206 Arctics in 5 hours 15 mins from West Allhalllows (Coombe Point) this p.m. - an excellent count for the site Sadly, I failed to detect any non-Arctics - nor, Gannets.

An unusual and quite incredible sight was of a Golden Eagle (with Jessies) (I wonder if it was from Eagle Heights?) over my garden in Hartley at around midday, being mobbed by three sparrowhawks and a Peregrine Falcon!! Also 1 grey wagtail over.

I got up at 5.30 this morning here in Minster, Sheppey, to the sound of a Tawny Owl calling from a garden very close to me.
It was too dark to look for it but it's certainly not a call that you here on Sheppey much these days.
(Derek Faulkner)

It’s always the way with local patches; someone else swans in, raises their bins and finds the rarity that’s thus far eluded the scanning eyes of the locals. And so it was when Howard Vaughn popped across from Rainham RSPB to Bromhey farm today to help shepherd us punters around the RSPB country fair. The bird in question was a Spoonbill that had settled on the pool in front of the watchpoint and fed underwing in typical Spoonbill fashion.

I too enjoyed this bird but not before the Lawson & Hunter families had tried their hands at a bit of pond dipping. Various bugs and stuff surfaced via our trawling nets and they were carefully deposited into water filled trays for all to see. One of the bigger kids present, James Hunter, managed to catch the star of the show: A water stick insect! A clouded yellow butterfly also appeared in the grass behind the ditch and I got a few RSPB chaps onto it before it disappeared.

The Country Fair surprised me in terms of the amount of things available to see and do. There was an eclectic mix of stalls with Martin Coath manning the KOS stall a few yards from the Woodturners exhibits whilst sheep shearing drew the crowds a short distance away. The quality of the food and drink is wirth the visit alone.

Having spent a large amount of quality time with our families, the birdwatching Karma Gods rewarded myself and James with a Red Backed Shrike that was found mid-afternoon from the viewing mound.

Well done to the RSPB for all their efforts. We’ll certainly be back next year.

I had an enjoyable afternoon at the Wildlife & Countryside Fair at Bromhey Farm. A very good event with plenty of KOS members in evidence. A distant imm. Spoonbill was good to see, but half way through the afternoon a Red-back Shrike was found. Curiously soon thereafter the KOS stand and just about every other stand in the place manned by birdwatchers suddenly emptied. Even Norman McCanch forsook his paintings and popped over to see it despite it not resembling a Cormorant whatsoever (for those that don't know Norman has a strange affection for this species). As Norman pointed out four Merlin also went over high - I did a double take until I realised he ment the four attached to the wing of a Lancaster bomber!
Mind you I had a sharp reminder of why I tend to keep to east Kent - the Spoonbill was evidently only the second for the reserve and the Red-backed Shrike the first for forty years (or was it sixty? - the PA seemed uncertain). After all we had a very handsome adult male at Grove this year and I'm not sure how many Spoonbill! :-)
Seriously, all concerned with the fair deserve warm congratulations for organising such a superb event. Not only were there plenty of birders in evidence, but - more importantly - masses of families with kids and folks just out for the day,
(John Cantelo)

This morning's dawn, and the couple of hours after it, conditions were as good as they get. A big orange sun came out just after 06.00 and quickly warmed a clear blue sky with barely a breath of wind. This was exemplified not long after by the sight of thirteen hot air balloons rising up over the Detling area.
As I threaded my way through the cattle and across to the seawall, two parties of Blackwits, totalling 270 birds, left the reserve and headed out into the Swale. Once on top of the seawall a quick scan, to my surprise, registered only one wildfowler present and he was almost immediately in action as around 180 Greylags left the tide and headed back to the reserve very low over the top of him. Despite several shots into them he only killed the one bird, although shortly after, one started to lag behind the others and eventually glided down onto the farmland somewhere. Having shot his one goose the wildfowler, to his credit, then packed up and went home. Unfortunately this was not the case over at Oare, where I was able to clearly see four wildfowlers stood along the base of the seawall in front of the West Flood. They continued to fire at regular intervals at presumably wildfowl coming over the seawall from the Flood, for a couple of hours.
Given the beauty of the morning and the clarity of light, I was surprised, looking to and fro across the Swale, that there didn't appear to be any birdwatchers anywhere.
Out in the Swale, the early morning high tide was ebbing fast and large numbers of Curlew, Grey Plovers, Godwits, ect. were starting to re-colonise the mudflats, with the occasional calls of passing Whimbrel and Sandwich Terns ringing out. I was also fascinated by watching several Common Seals further out in the Swale. They were drifting over the still covered Horse Sands and floating there on their backs, looking just like humans with their flippers seemingly crossed over their chests and their tail flippers sticking out of the water at the other end. They will wait like that for the ebbing tide to eventually lower them gently onto the top of the sands.
Walking back across the reserve a Hobby sped across and kept on going out across the Swale towards Graveney, whilst three Marsh Harriers over the neighbouring farmland, chivvied some Redleg Partridges around without actually killing any.
Along the boundary ditch I had two Wheatears and a Whinchat on the fence posts and loud bursts of song from a Cettis Warbler which has been in that same position for most of the year. Several hundred yards further on I was able to confirm what I had suspected for a while, that there was now a second Cettis, this one with a scratchier song than the other. Two Turtle Doves by the reserve barn then completed a very enjoyable patrol.
(Derek Faulkner)

A fairly late Garden Warbler sang almost non-stop during a brief afternoon visit - the best sighting was probably a Weasel as a few House Martins moving through were the best of the rest.

Woke up at 04.30 this morning and laid there till 05.00 when a lightening of the eastern sky indicated that dawn was on it's way. Got up, bunged my Jack Russell in the car and headed for the Swale NNR in near darkness, unfortunately leaving the older Beagle behind as she is petrified at the sound of shotguns going off and that was to be expected this morning.
On the Harty Road at the bottom of Capel Hill, two empty vehicles were parked, indicating that duck shooters were already in place along Capel Fleet, down below Capel Farm. There were a lot of the semi-tame Greylags in there yesterday, plus Mallard and a pair of Garganey recently - Garganey look just like any other duck to a shooter in the half light!
Arrived at the Reserve at 05.30 in still poor light, to the east a fairly bright sky but to the west, near darkness, and was surprised to see the rare sight of a bat flying round the barn there. Haven't a clue what it was except it wasn't very big.
Midge, my dog and I set off straight across the marsh and head for the seawall, 10 mins away, and as we walk a barrage of shots from back in the middle of Harty marshes starts up, the poor old wildfowl must be getting up for their breakfast. Apart from the odd Mallard quacking here it seemed surprisingly quiet, surely the wildfowlers hadn't stayed home on this first morning - mind you there was a 6 metre tide at 04.00, which would of part flooded the saltings, could of been dangerous. A Kingfisher zips along the seawall on the saltings side, whistling as it goes.
Come off the seawall and onto the veranda of the seawall hide (the shooters complain if you stay on top of the seawall footpath too long, cause it spoils their shooting). A scan of the saltings with the scope in the fast improving light finds twelve heads spread out in a line at regular intervals along the saltings in front of the seawall hide, didn't think the wildfowlers would miss the first day of six months opportunity to reduce the reserve's wildfowl population.
Shots ring out across the Swale over at Oare nature reserve so there's obviously wildfowlers over there as well, apparently the shooting's quite good in front of that reserve when dog walkers/birders on the seawall don't spoil it. Just then my heart sinks because coming in across the saltings at a ridiculously low height is a party of the local, semi-tame Greylag geese. Shots immediately ring out and pellets can be heard hitting some of the birds but miraculously none come down or falter and they carry on to the corn stubble alongside the reserve where the rest of the flock are. Two Teal go out over the saltings and are shot with a right and a left by one shooter but a high party of Mallard following are shot at and missed due to their extreme height, not good to see.
The intensity of shooting, a few miles back in the middle of Harty marshes somewhere is intensifying and I can't help thinking as the sun tries to come out, of how beautifully quiet it has been for the last six months of dawns and now this, so much noise and death and for why.

A lone Mallard goes out and is shot and winged and trails a long gliding flight out to the mudflats that are now starting to appear. The dogless shooter trudges out and wanders up and down the mud looking for it and eventually has to shout out for the assistance of another shooter who has two dogs and eventually the hapless bird is found and dispatched. A single Greylag comes in from the mudflats and this too is hit but carries on to the safety of the reserve. Apparently the Greylags went out to the tide before it got light and normally like to pick up grit from the mudflats to better their digestion.
It is now 08.00 and the morning wildfowl movements appear to have stopped and with it the shooting. I watch a flock of 22 Cormorants come by and soon after three small parties of Little Egrets and all the time, regular movements of Swallows and Martins going West. I have a few Sedge and Reed Warblers in the reed beds alongside the hide and peace and quiet is beginning to reappear.
The wildfowlers are beginning to pack up and come along the seawall and so I go and speak to some of them. One had apparently fell into a flooded reelway in the dark and filled his waders up with water and was very cold and you could hear the squelching as he came along the wall. I commented on the fact that birds appeared to have been hit but didn't come down and were now presumably carrying shot wounds. Their reply was the fact that the new steel shot has a poorer killing range than the old lead shot that has now been outlawed over wetlands. I commented that in the light of that that perhaps they should re-assess their shooting distances and make more certain that they were going to at least kill the birds but incredibly they felt that this would limit the amount of shooting that they actually did!
They went and were followed by two members of their committee who were acting as shooting wardens and who I have found to be very helpful. I commented on the extreme height that some birds were being shot at and they fully agreed and left me to go and re-educate their remaining fellow members.
This will now regularly go on twice a day for the next six months and all within 100 yds of a nature reserve, both here and at Oare, ridiculous.
(Derek Faulkner)

First full walk of the new month, and my usual count up took place. a good start to September, with 44 species recorded, the highlights were, 1 Yellow wagtail, feeding on the sports pitch at hadlow college, 1 Marsh Tit in the waterlogged woods and 1 Reed Bunting along the drainage ditch next to the maize crop. Mistle Thrushes have returned to my patch, not seen them since mid Aug. Song Thrush and blackbirds were keeping low, as they do this time of year. A single Turtle Dove fed in a recently cropped cereal field. Blackcap and Chiffchaff were the only Warblers about, but there were plenty of Spotted Flycatchers (two groups of 5) There were also alot of Bullfinch around. A couple of Cormorants flew off the pond, and 22 Canada geese flew over. Yesterdays pair of Wheatear couldn't be found, nor did I find L.T Tit, Skylark, Stock Dove or any raptor or Gull species any of which could of been expected.