Saturday 04/01/2020

07.30-09.30 from the sea watch hide with John, RW & SO
The first hour very busy I must have missed a lot, probably more Razorbills than I recorded as so much going on I clicked the Guillemots in 10s.
John had a Great Northern Diver go east high which I missed.
Shelduck: 1W
Common Scoter: 4W
Red-throated Diver: 379E     3W
Great-crested Grebe: 23E    2W
Gannet: 47E    26W
Cormorant: c2,500E (the flock stretched back to RYE, so presumably roosted there)
Oystercatcher: 3E
Curlew: 1W
Great Skua: 1W
Kittiwake: 7E   119W
Guillemot: 2,690E     140W
Razorbill: 21E       15W
Auk sp:  estimated 150E      40W
Late morning on a very busy reserve 2 Red-crested Pochards from Dennis's picnic area courtesy of PB. 100s of Lapwing, Golden Plover and Wigeon on the Boulderwall Fields.

Mistle Thrush an early afternoon surprise in Lydd, now a scarce bird here.

The regular Little Owl at Lydd camp early afternoon

At Scotney I could only find 1 Long-tailed Duck, also despite searching through all the feral Geese there I could find no wild Geese, 3 Marsh Harriers were hunting along the far bank.

Early afternoon the drake Smew reappeared at Tanners Pool and 2 Tundra Bean Geese were found at Dengemarsh. Being to lazy to walk out to Dengemarsh hide I tried to locate them from Dengemarsh Road, but they were playing hide and seek and winning, while we were looking for them we were distracted by the male Hen Harrier which suddenly appeared fairly close to us, as tried to get my camera up I knocked the focus points out, by the time I had reset them the Harrier had flown down to couple of hundred yards from house then disappearing towards the airport and out of camera range, while I was still cursing myself we spotted the Tundra Bean Geese also heading towards my house, we saw them land a few hundred yards away from the house with some Lapwing and Golden Plover, so we made our way back to the cars and headed towards them, before we got there they were all spooked by something, probably a Common Buzzard and lost. with the light fading I went home. Hopefully I will get the Hen Harrier on garden year list in the next couple of weeks along with the Tundra Bean Geese.