The Other Side!

 Great Northern Diver, Digue Du Braek, Dunkerque

Myself, Mark and Chris had a day out on the otherside of the channel. We arrived at Digue Du Braek, Dunkerque around 08.00 in a bitingly cold NE gale only to find the entrance blocked by security guards, Mark is quite fluent in French and was able to discover that it was closed for the day for filming. We were only able to view a small section and managed to see 2 Great Northern Divers and a Slavonian Grebe being tossed around by the gale driven waves in the harbour also a Shag of note resting on a bouy, unfortunately we had no chance of catching up with any of the Snow Buntings or Crested Lark that would be further down the Braek.

 Desert Wheatear, De Panne, Belgium.

As we had more time than expected we decided to make the half hour drive over the border De Panne in Belgium where a Desert Wheatear has been in residence for the last 3 months in a beachside camper site, finding the site was relatively easy, though we did manage to walk the long way round following a Belgian birder whom we thought new where he was going. Once on site we found the bird within few minutes and had superb views of this confiding bird. As is often the case on the continent the only other birder present while we were there was the Belgian one we followed in. 

After the superb showing of the Desert Wheatear we made our back to Grand Fort Philippe where on previous visits we have seen Shorelark, Twite and Snow Buntings, we had a short walk around in the biting wind but saw only Reed Bunting and Meadow Pipits. Next stop was Oye Plage just a single Spoonbill was seen along with the common wildfowl in the pools. Parking at Casino Beach we walked out onto the beach splitting up to cover a greater area of salt marsh but our luck was out, we could not find the c30 Shorelark nor the c20 Snow Buntings that have been seen there most days this year, we did see a number of Skylarks, Linnets, Meadow Pipits, Reed Buntings and a Merlin despite the NE gale it was an excellent day out in excellent company, also saving me from another day of Gull bothering at Dungeness.