What a difference a day makes.

Today turned out to be a glorious day for a walk along the Saxon Shore Way cliff path at Langdon.

From this angle it looks as if the Lighthouse has been cut in half! I noticed a small furry object in the grass.

Normally I'd be pleased to see an small mammal, but in the words of Monty Python "I'll tell you what's wrong with it, my lad. 'E's dead, that's what's wrong with it!" I think it is a Pygmy Shrew, the body was about 3.5 cm long. These tiny mammals are voracious feeders, mostly beetles and spiders, but also earthworms. They consume their own body weight every day, so I presume that this one had succumbed to the dreadful weather of the last few days as their was not sign of any physical damage.

Just along here I flushed a female type Snow Bunting, it settled for a short while, but I then lost it as it flew towards the cliff edge. Not my favourite area, I always feel that if you get too close to the edge there's some sort of "magnetic" force pulling you closer.

After well over 30 hours in the field in the last nine days I finally found my first Redwing in TR34 in the winter months, and it wasn't very obliging, burying itself deep in this bush. You can just about make out the head pattern with a bit of imagination. I only took the picture because other than Gulls, Pigeons and Crows of various species, there are so few birds about.

At least at the cliff top there are a lot of Herring Gulls, at least 350 were around, not unusual, but they were particularly interested in the three small fishing boats off shore. I gives you a chance to look at the wing patterns to ID the age of the bird. I think the bird above is a full adult.

Most birders either hate gull identification (larophobes) or, probably the smaller group. are prepared to study gulls for hours, looking for the small details that are often needed to separate closely related species or sub-species. I quite enjoy checking them out, but I have to admit I'm not that good at finding some of the more obscure taxa that have recently been found and described. The Herring Gull complex is an example of evolution in process and identification is fast becoming reliant on DNA analysis. No problem with these though, they're Herring Gulls. Back to the bird above, I think this is a third winter, but I'm happy to be corrected.

This is a younger bird, I would say a second winter. While I was Gull watching they suddenly became more noisy and agitated, a sure sign that there is a predator around.

Sure enough a Peregrine circled overhead, but quickly disappeared along the cliffs, with out giving prolonged views. It probably had done already if I'd been looking it the right direction.

On my way bact to St Margaret's (after a cup of tea and a piece of bread pudding at the NT cafe, the bread pudding was a reminder of the old day's at Nancy's in Cley), a Raven flew over and landed on one of the Radio Masts. I'd only seen just over 20 species, but their were a few stars amongst them.

Not as forecast

Yesterday the forecast was for a fine day in the South-east, with cloud and then rain arriving in the evening. Even a lunch time the radio was telling me that it was fine, whereas I was sitting looking at the heavy drizzle, heavy enough to be called rain most of the time, meeting the clouds as they mixed in with the mist enveloping the White-cliffs car park!

I wanted to stroll along the cliffs to Langdon Hole and beyond, but this is no fun in the rain, so I spent some time sitting in my car peering into the gloom.

A pair of Magpies braved the weather to pick up any morsels they could find in the car park and then moved to a tree nest to the car clacking loudly.

At one point fifteen Jackdaws landed in the same tree, but as soon as I put the window down these six were all that remained. They soon took off to join the others and I could see the flock every now and again as they re-appeared and then disappeared in the mist.

I did go and see a man about a turkey and on the way found a Mediterranean Gull along side about 100 Black-headed Gulls on a field at Whitfield. Once this would have been a notable event, but now Mediterranean Gulls are doing so well that it is almost an every day occurrence, especially in east Kent.

Of Grave Concern

A fine morning found me walking another piece of the Old Roman Road, today from just behind Guston down to Dover at the Cemetery at Old Charlton Road. Once again it was very quiet and I couldn't help thinking of how much more birdy many countries are than the UK. Even the overcrowded, large building site that is South Korea seemed to have flocks of small birds, Buntings, Finches and the like and loads of various Thrushes in any open area. I seemed to several hundred yards along the Roman Road, with hedges and fields on both sides with only two or three Blue Tits, an couple of Magpies and a Carrion Crow.

When I got to the bottom of the footpath and onto Old Charlton Road I came across an oasis a more productive area, the cemetery! I suppose that the inhabitants don't disturb the birds much, not in the day time anyway, and the good mixture of threes and shrubs proves an ideal habitat for quite a few species. I was greeted by this raucous Jay as I entered this haven.

It flew off into a dense tree, to join it's partner, but there was more activity there. As well as a couple of calling Coal Tits I could hear some quieter "see see" calls.

This proved to be our smallest bird, a Goldcrest. Church yards and cemeteries seem to be favourites places for Goldcrests, probably because Yew Trees seem to be their preferred homes.

Of course at this time of year no survey would be complete with out a Robin, all it needed was a sprinkling of snow to make the seasonal picture. Only 27 species seen in TR34 B today, but again I think there are quite a few to add at a later visit.

Stock take

Despite seeing hundreds of Wood Pigeons on a daily basis, so far I haven't bumped into any Stock Doves when I've been doing my Timed Tetrad Visits this winter. I know that they're out there but I've missed them so far. I think that they are very attractive in an understated way. Nome of the swagger and pomp of the Woodpigeon, or the yobbish behaviour of the Feral (Rock) Dove, they just quietly and all to often unobtrusively get on with their lives.

As soon as I'm in another area, this time near Little Mongeham, I see them. It was a species in severe decline back in the 1950's and 60's due to the use of organochlorine seed dressings. The population index has fallen slightly over the last five years, but they are still about five times more numerous than in the 1960's. The large flock of resting Herring Gulls in the background are taking a break from feeding on the waste that comes from Tilmanstone Salads. It's funny how some people in some places complain about how many "Sea Gulls" there are and yet man's dirty habits at refuse tips and waste sites continues to encourage them. It's rather like anglers, artificially stocking lakes and them complaining that Cormorants come and eat their fish. What on earth do they expect? If you provide free food then you will naturally get grateful takers!

Out for a paddle

When the rain stopped it seemed like a good idea to get out and do some birding. It was also an opportunity to get another TTV done. The 2km square I walked round today was centred on Studdal and goes by the official name of TR34E. I was rather disappointed at the number of birds I found, perhaps they've had enough of the monsoon season and moved! I would have done better to have worn wellies, even our well drained footpaths were beginning to resemble paddy fields in places.

One bird that did show was a Mistle Thrush (three in total) and I realised that this was the first I'd seen in a week of surveying, where have they all gone? In the old Birds of Kent (now over 30 years old) Mistle Thrushes were found in more than three quarters of the tetrads in Kent. Of course that was in the breeding season, when the males sing loudly from a high singing post. Perhaps they are just less easy to find at the moment.

The Common Gull, which winters with us in some numbers seems to like wet field to feed in and today they were particularly partial to horse paddocks, a common habitat in this area.

Rooks were fairly prominent, and there is a rookery in the village of Studdal. They never move far from their colonies and are one of the earliest species to get into the breeding cycle in spring, in fact it won't belong before they start the annual renovation job on their nests. I saw just 33 species today, but of course there is a second count later in the winter and casual records can also be added, so hopefully many of the gaps will be filled in.

How are your Sparrows?

For a long time, despite the reports of the huge crash in House Sparrow numbers from many places in the UK, the flock visiting my garden seemed to be in good health and number.

I'm sorry to say that this year all seems to have changed and instead of the 20 or 30 that regularly visited the feeders in past years, we are lucky to see more than a couple at any time. I can think of nothing that has changed that could have caused this reduction, the number of Greenfinches, Chaffinches and Goldfinches is building up, but the number of Sparrows is still low. I even noticed that although I saw and heard a few when walking through Whitfield yesterday it was just a few, and not what you would have expected to see in that sort of habitat ten or so years ago.

One species that hasn't suffered a reduction is the Woodpigeon, the number visiting my garden continues to increase, they particularly like taking a bath, and when they do I always have to refill it as they seem to take much of the water with them when they leave.

Yesterday afternoon, one of the farmers where I was doing my TTV told me he sometimes saw a Barn Owl near by. I decided to take a look round the area towards dusk this afternoon. I didn't see any owls, but as I was passing one field I noticed a couple of Carrion Crows on the ground next to an odd sort of lump. It was a narrow road and by the time I'd parked safely I could see that it was a Buzzard with it's wings spread over something on the ground. As soon as I wound down my window it took off and landed in a near by tree.

It was followed by second bird I hadn't seen, and it disappeared into the trees in the gloom.

Black Bunny

I took the opportunity, in the fine weather, to do an other TTV (timed Tetrad visit) for the BTO atlas project. Today's tetrad included most of Whitfield and I enjoyed exploring some of the North Downs Way, that follows the old Roman Road, near Pinenum.

Overall the number of birds, and the variety of species I encountered was rather disappointing, although I did enjoy bumping into a noisy and very active flock of Long-tailed Tits. The bird above looks as if it is in urgent need of renewing it's rather tatty tail feathers.

This one look rather more spick and span, but the group wasn't attracting any of the more unusual species that sometimes travel with tit flocks.

Even in the fields where there were some handsome horses, as is to be expected in this area, there were few birds to be seen, amonsgt the commoner birds, Blackbirds and Chaffinches seemed to be the most numerous.

One animal that I did encounter was a completely melanistic (black) Rabbit. Although it isn't that unusual, it is the first I can remember seeing since I was on Skomer, of the Pembroke coast. Here the black Rabbits are famous as they form a high proportion of the population.

I only saw the one black Bunny, all the others were quite normal. This one was so encouraged by the rare sunshine it allowed me to get quite close to take this photo.