Month: November 2022

Another 30 mph South Westerly morning so I headed to the sheltered end of the patch and quickly came across a Pallas’s warbler. Not in top wood however the bird was down in the Pines garden where I’d had one last friday. I took it to be ‘probably’ one of last weeks birds until it called: a flatter and shorter note, on occasion a dysllabic almost Humes like call though still obviously pallas’s-esque, quite different from anything heard last week.

The bird showed on and off for about an hour until I moved off and toured the valley seeing very little except the same Eurasian Treecreeper, 3 Firecrest and a Blackcap.

Ive been checking the harbour and Shakey Beach area in the afternoons. Nothing today but 2 Caspian Gulls last Friday which i forgot to mention. A striking 2nd winter patrolling the beach (pic) and a dainty first winter on the puddles.

Light South Easterlies with sunshine and the occasional fog patch over the weekend made were good condition looking for the Pallas’s Warbler. Although no sign in the Pines garden on Saturday morning and very little else until we walked through Top wood and Rich picked up a Pallas’s calling that then appeared overhead. The bird was high up and moving quickly in the canopy. Later in the day Tony M put out that there were in fact two Pallas’s Warblers in top wood. Sunday was a similar situation and more people looking for the birds produced the same conclusion – 2 Birds. Myself Rich and Steve C had two vocal birds together briefly, again fast moving and feeding high up. Im of the mind that the two in Top wood are different to the bird in the Pines (almost 1km away) from Friday, so potentially 3 Pallas’s over the weekend which is great!

Fast forward to this morning and a blanket of fog lay over the Western end of the patch which moved east throughout the morning, and a different set of birds. Thrushes moving first thing with mixed flocks of Redwing, Fieldfare and Black birds dotted within. 18 Lapwing flew in off and north aswell as 2 Golden Plover.

1 Eurasian Treecreeper, 1 Brambling, 25 Siskin, 2 Redpoll, 44 Goldcrest , 8 Firecrest, 4 Chiffchaff and 5 Blackcap were counted, 3 Coal tit also -which looked like British birds.

The constant & strong SW winds have ground me down somewhat and with little to report this blog has been unchanged for nearly 2 weeks. Waking up again to the sound of wind whistling down the between our house and the cliff I decided to start my search at the very far end of the patch: the ever-sheltered South Foreland valley.

I drove, which is a rare occurrence, and as I walked up the track to the start of the valley, I came across a tit flock moving across the track containing several Goldcrests plus a Firecrest and as I pished I heard the little “cork pulled from a wine bottle-squeak” of a Pallas’s Warbler, which then appeared right in front of me.

My best and most prolonged views of the species in this country and perhaps the most vocal individual I’ve known. It eventually performed for a small crowd after relocating it down in the Pines garden.

Favouring a Beech hedge bordering some gardens the bird fed at lower levels but did also flit about in some sycamores.

Some decent weather ahead for the weekend or at least some lighter winds!