Category: waders
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September 2024
September is when visible migration really steps up a gear and my birding time over the month was largely spent soaking it up. It was a wet and unsettled month weather wise and this may have contributed to those those days of finer weather being particularly lively. Movement seems to occur on a broad front…
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August 2024
The first half of August was warm and relatively calm, with some great days for observing migration. In the third week of the month the remains of Hurricane Ernesto passed over the UK, bringing with it strong winds and rain which largely put a hold on movement. This was followed by a final period of…
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July 2024
The long, warm days of July can mean only one thing: it’s time to start looking for that keenly awaited marker of midsummer; the arrival of juvenile Yellow-legged Gull from southern Europe. My first this year came on the 13th, with a flyby watched moving west from West Hill. In marked contrast to the riches…
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June 2024
It’s difficult to summarise the wildly variable weather experienced here during June but it certainly felt unseasonably cool for much of it. On the 1st of the month I spent the day at Rye Harbour NR (RHNR), a safe bet for interesting birding at the time of year with the last bits of wader passage…
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Sabine’s Gull and Grey Phalarope, Norman’s Bay, 11 November 2023
On the 11th I made the short trip west to Norman’s Bay to catch up with the 1CY Sabine’s Gull which had been hanging around there since the 5th Nov. In the end this came with the very nice bonus of a Grey Phalarope and at least 7 Little Gull. These storm blown birds have…
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Pectoral Sandpiper at Pannel Valley, 30th July 2023
With a window of time to spend at Pannel Valley on the morning of Sunday 30th, waders were very much on my mind. Thanks to a timely intervention by the management there, wader-friendly water levels are being maintained at the main scrape. It was therefore no surprise to find a nice range of species present,…