Month: July 2023

An afternoon visit to Deal beach looking for my first Juv Caspian Gull of the year was a success, one of the first birds to come in was a vocal Casp and performed well alongside 4 juv Yellow–legged gulls and the local Herrings.

The morning wasnt bad either, light NW winds and sunshine, nice early autumn weather for my first Willow Warbler of the autumn, a yellow wagtail over South too.

The Quail was still singing in the same spot and my second Large Tortoiseshell was in the enclosure, never very close but showed nicely for Colin, Mark, Lucy and I.

A few hours of light SW winds and sunshine before the rain began was pleasant weather for a walk up the cliffs, the highlight of which was a singing Quail just West of the Lighthouse. A first for me here, it seemed to be moving about abit and singing every few minutes around 8.30 am, I’ll head up there this evening again.

A juvenile Marsh Harrier flew south West over light house down, as did c500 Swifts, 90 Sandmartin, 2 House Martin and 55 Swallow and my first Wheatear of the autumn was on the track to the farm.

3 Small blues, my first Chalk hill blues of the year, a Small purple barred moth and a Ruddy darter were insects of interest.

Light SSW winds convinced me to head up the cliffs as apposed to inland first thing this morning and although the headland walk was fairly quiet (110 Sand Martins, 20 Swallow and 2 juvenile Yellow–legged Gulls west) my day was made when I walked back down the cliff path onto my street and had a female Honey Buzzard circling low above the houses at cliff top height.

The bird got a single buzz off one of the adult Peregrines and a few Gulls vocally complained but it drifted over the cliff top and towards the castle – cue me legging it back up the cliff path in an attempt to see it again, I picked it up high over the A2 heading inland. Ive seen a handful of Honey Buzzards that would have flown over my house but never one from the street itself, very exciting for me!

An event I look forward to, high summer gulling. Ive seen a couple of Juv YLGs flying around in the past couple of days, but this afternoon tried the beach at Deal and had 3 different birds. 2 of which came in close the other floated around far out. Expect more to come but heres some images.

The darkest of the 3 below, with the first signs of Scapular moult just coming through .

There are a few Juv Herrings now flying around Dover and starting to ‘creche’ in the harbour, the pair of Lesser black Backed gulls on the cliff behind my house seem to still have very small chicks.

The first South Easterlies I’ve experienced here since the end of the April and despite the late date I knew there was a chance of an HB. Colin and I met on light house down and spend a couple hours looking unsuccessfully but whilst walking home at 12.30 I picked up a Honey Buzzard out over the water just East of the Harbour. It flew West over the Eastern docks and round the corner out of view, I could hear the Gulls going apeshit, shame i wasn’t sat in the garden as it would have gone over head! Poor pic below, the only non heat haze pixel ball.

A south-bound adult Cuckoo was on Foxhill down, my first of the year here and 11 Sandmartin + 100 Swift flew South West .

I should mention the 1,015 Swifts that I counted flying SW on the 1st, abit of a spectacle! Im also seeing a few Mediterranean Gulls in the harbour – the first of a summer build up we get here.