Saturday 4 August 2012

Swifts

At the ARC Pit mid morning after receiving a text from OL as I was leaving home after a lay in, telling me of a small fall of migrants there. As I made my way to the tower Willow Warblers were seen and heard by the track with more at the pines where Lesser Whitethroat, Common Whitethroat and Blackcap were seen, but no Cuckoo or Redstarts. With 100s of Swifts and Sand Martins round the pit I spent an hour trying to photograph the Swifts with limited success.   



 No sign of fall round The Moat, Lloyds and the Lighthouse Garden in fact an avian desert.
A hour and half at the fishing boats this afternoon, found good numbers of Common and Sandwich Terns and Gannets offshore, also a Juvenile Arctic Tern. c200 Sand Martins flew south.
I watched a Cormorant fishing just off shore take at least 14 fish all be it small ones, I can see why private fisheries dislike them. The one I was watching had an almost 100% catch rate per dive.
Back at the ARC car park it was good to meet some old friends from Sussex. From Hanson 3 Garganey, 2+ Common Sandpipers, 4+ Little-ringed Plovers, a Whimbrel, a Black-tailed Godwit and a Mediterranean Gull.

1 comment:

  1. Strange you should be seeing swifts this Saturday. I was gardening and my cat was going crazy in one of the covered wells to the celler windows. She isn't interested in birds just mice, so I thought she might have cornered one there. No she was pointing out that a swift had fallen down in there. It had proberbly flown into the open window. Anyway I rescued it, and after a minute or two getting its breath back it flew off. The cat went and caught a mouse somewhere else and brought it home to show me.

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