White-winged Black Tern

I waited four days, telling myself that I could not justify the drive over to Rye just to see one bird, but in the end I had to go. My justification, to myself, was that I was sure to see something else whilst I was out and that would make it all worthwhile. Little could I have known that my second bird would be a Red-breasted Flycatcher giving me two life ticks in a day.

The Tern was easy enough to find. It was sitting on a mudbank just in front of the Castle Water hide. Birders using a telescope would call it showing well. Birders with a camera would call it not showing anywhere near well enough. No luck with it moving either, each time it was disturbed it went back to that same spot, just that little bit too far away.

White-winged Black Tern

Wing stretching

Eventually I followed it round to the western end of the water where it was feeding and  I spent a surprisingly enjoyable if somewhat frustrating hour or so trying to track it in flight and keep it in focus. The results were not brilliant but you can at least see the identifying features.

Much as it grieves me to promote someone else's work you need to take a look at John Standen's shots on flicker (click here) to see how it should have been done.

There were a lot of other good birds around Castle Water. A Ruff and a couple of Little Stint were showing well on the mud in front of the hide. A Marsh Harrier made  a couple of passes over the area putting most of the birds into the air. I managed to put up a flock of five Bearded Tits that then disappeared into the centre of the reed bed and there were Meadow Pipits and Wheatears on the fences around the reserve.

Marsh Harrier

Meadow Pipits

Wheatear

The light was starting to go so I took the long walk back to the car and was about to set off for home when Mick Davis turned up and tipped me off to the Red-breasted Flycatcher at Beachy Head. It was only a short detour off the route home and I had never seen one before so it was worth a look. It was in the old trapping area and again was surprisingly easy to find. Getting a clear view though, to confirm the sighting, was really difficult. It may have a white belly and red breast but in the thick cover it was using it was just another fast moving little brown job.

Red-breasted Flycatcher

When I eventually got a good view it turned out to be a really smart looking male. The pictures do not do it justice, they were taken on high ISO in the gathering gloom and light drizzle. I have already seen a couple of shots of it on the web that are streets ahead of mine.  If the sun shines tomorrow I may well be going back to give it another go.

A strange days birding. I have picked up two life ticks and I should be over the moon, but I'm not. It's photographing the birds that I really like doing. I've got the record shots but there is nothing here that I could class as good. It seems a long time since I last took a picture that I was really happy with.

Black-winged Stilt

We set off today with rather ambitious plans. Rye Harbour for the Kentish Plover and Little Stint; Dungeness for the Black-winged Stilt, and the Little, Arctic, and Common Terns; and Sandwich Bay for the Blue-winged Teal and Garganey. Its not really us, its not what we do. Its a twitch, there would be little time for photography and little time to observe the birds, but we had to go, the Black-winged Stilt alone was worth the trip.

The day did not go to plan. We never made it to Sandwich Bay, we wasted time chasing a bird that was not on our list, and we wasted time because neither of us was willing to move on without getting pictures of the birds, however bad those pictures turned out to be. But we did see some great birds.

Our first stop, Rye Harbour, was where it all began to go wrong. We could not find the Little Stint or the Kentish Plover and we should have accepted that and moved on. Instead we were tipped off by the warden to a Temminck's Stint and Curlew Sandpiper. A long walk and extensive search and an hour and a half later we had little to show for our efforts. We saw Avocets, distant Little and Common Terns. and a Whimbrel but none of our target birds.

Whimbrel

Avocet

In the end we had to accept defeat and move on even though three of the birds we were searching for had been see by others. The consolation prize was that Dave managed to pick up  a House Martin as we arrived back in the car park, another first for the year.

A quick stop at Scotney Pits gave us nothing new and on arrival at Dungeness we headed straight off to see the Black-winged Stilt.

Black-winged Stilt

The pair were still there so it was a life tick for me. We should have been able to get some great pictures but just after we arrived the Nuclear Power Station started venting steam and the noise caused most of the birds to relocate. The Stilts were still visible but they were further away. I don't know if it was the beauty of the birds in flight or the thought that I might be getting showered with nuclear particles but I just watched them go and forgot to take a picture.

Black-winged Stilts

There were a  small group of birders gathered there but most were waiting for another bird, a Wood Sandpiper, that was skulking in the reeds. As before we could not let it go and we stood around for about two hours waiting for the bird to appear. The best shot I got in that time was the one below. People who had seen it earlier confirmed that it was a Wood Sandpiper but there is nothing here that I can use to identify it.

Possible Wood Sandpiper

Even when the power station stopped venting steam about an hour later the bird stayed hidden in the reeds. Fortunately there were plenty of Whitethroats, Sedge Warblers and Cettie's to keep us busy although as usual the Cettie's managed to avoid having their pictures taken.

Sedge Warbler

Whitethroat

Having wasted a couple of hours and with the rain setting in we aborted the last part of our trip and retired to the ARC hide. This gave us Black Terns and there were probably Arctic Terns as well but we could not separate those from the Common Terns at the distances involved.

So not a completely successful trip but I came away with six year and one life tick so I can't really complain.