First thing this morning I took a walk around Scotney out to the wind turbines, the strong winds made birding near impossible. The Avocets on the back lake seem to have suffered badly in the gales, there were at least 18 pairs either with eggs or young, there are now no sitting birds and I could only find 3 well grown young birds and 1 very recently hatched bird. The rest of the walk was very quiet due to the wind.
Bee-eater
Leaving Scotney I went to Galloways which was equally windswept, just a family of Stonechats, a Red-legged Partridge and few Whitethroats. I stopped at Lydd Camp to check on the Little Owls which were both showing and taking food to the nest, as I pulled away the unmistakable silhouette of a Bee-eater landed on telegraph wires some 50 yds in front of me, I grabbed my camera off the passenger seat leaned out of the window and took a couple of record images, then pulled the car a bit nearer and took some images from the car as it flew high grabbed a Bee and returned to the same spot, after eating the Bee it flew to the wire across the road showing its beautiful colours to full effect in the bright sun light. After alerting a few locals and tweeting the news out I watched the bird for a few minutes as it hawked off the wires inside the camp, just as BH pulled up it flew over the pines in the camp not to be seen again despite searching.
Bee-eater
Bee-eater
Little Owl with prey
Most of the rest of my day was taken up with domestic stuff, though I did manage an hour at the fishing boats this evening, where it seems the Storm Petrel influx has petered out.
18.30-19.30
Fulmar: 2 downGannet: 28 down 7 up
Oystercatcher: 1 up
Kittiwake: 1 down
Sandwich Tern: 12 down
Common Tern: 2 up
Swift: 1 in
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