WORK TILL YOU DROP !

Quiet of late
I have done a bit of birding, a few trips to Dunge, Sheppey and some local Atlas work. At Dunge, Glossy Ibis, Cattle Egret, Great White Egret and some friendly Barnacle Geese. Common waders at Shellness and close to home two Common Buzzards at Darenth on Friday, 2 adult Yellow legged Gulls today at the Eastern Quarry near Bean and a superb Merlin and Peregrine at Southfleet recently whilst doing a TTV. I don't quite know how people keep up to date with blogs, websites etc, they must be retired or immediately get home from birding and make a beeline for the computer.
Regular updates will appear again soon once work allows me to escape the evil bacterial clutches of the petri dish!!!

A spare hour at Swanscombe

The first day of November was very very wet and an opportunity to catch up on some paperwork and homely things. A spare hour in the afternoon saw a break in the weather and I quickly visited Swanscombe for a quick shifty to see what had dropped in during the tropical storm!!!
Black headed Gulls were present 'as always', plus 2 Blackwits and the grotty eclipse Teal that are slowly getting back to their winter finery. A couple of Snipe probed around the muddy fringes whilst a few Herring Gulls dropped in for a bathe then flew again.

After a while a super adult Yellow-legged Gull dropped in for 10 mins and had a bathe, the first one I've actually seen on the CTRL pools. it's legs 'glowed' in the afternoon light and was easily compared with the bog standard 'Herring Gulls'

One of the showy Water Rail. Despite much trying this autumn I never did find a Crake, better luck next year hopefully.