Garden Watch

20 minutes at the fishing boats this morning was enough. Only a handful each of Gannets and Common Terns on a flat calm sea.

Very few birds trapped or seen at the observatory despite other south coast sites seeing reasonable numbers of migrants.

 While sitting in Firth hide with BP (AKA King Squacco), a Sparrowhawk flew past and almost leisurely plucked a Pied Wagtail from the air. Soon after a Marsh Harrier flew past the hide only feet from us, it was so close you could almost touch it as it glided past. A shame we were looking directly into the sun. Also from Firth a Wood Sandpiper, 2 Common Sandpipers and a Black-necked Grebe with another from Dennis's hide. By the track to Makepiece  2 Clouded Yellows. The Great White Egret still on Dengemarsh per BP.

At the ARC 6 Little Ringed Plovers, 2 Common Sandpipers and 3 Golden Plovers among the Lapwings were of note. From the screen an eclipse Garganey among the 100s of other wildfowl.
This afternoon I spent a couple of hours sitting in the front garden sky watching over the Rape fields 2 Common Buzzards, 3 Marsh Harriers, 2 Little Egrets, a Hobby chasing the 100s of Sand Martins, House Martins and Swallows that were hawking over the fields, also a couple of Yellow Wagtails were of note. Probably the most unusual sighting was a White Admiral that flew over the garden and headed off over the fields towards the ARC Pit.