Most of my spare time in June was spent leading dragonfly tours around various sites in Kent with a few clients but I did manage to get out a few times although it was generally very quiet on the bird front. I have managed to get out over the past few days and a couple of evening sessions as well. Birding highlights have included 2 Hobby, 4 Raven, 5 Mandarin seen in the ditches which included 4 young, a lone female Tufted Duck was seen last weekend flying down into one of the overgrown ditches and I suspected like other years that she probably had some young. Early this morning, I was able to arrive early and see that there were in fact 7 young Tufted Ducklings. They really are quite secretive with the female only seen flying briefly in flight in the area. There were c500 Swift flying west a few weekends ago and 2 Barn Owl have been seen in the nest box but they must be pretty nocturnal as I haven't seen them at all flying during the evening. Other than that, it has been the usual array of commoner birds but I did manage to record a calling Oystercatcher (121) during the night of the 18th July. With the waders seemingly on the move and late July/August probably being my best month for recording any night time flyovers, I will try to get the recorder out as and when the weather allows me too.
Oystercatcher
Good to see Nethergong Birding back on-line, after a 7 week break.
ReplyDeleteGreetings from the North Marc....Pete.