February 2008
Long Rock,Swalecliffe and Hampton, Herne bay.
07/02/08
Redshank at Hampton, Herne Bay.
I joined Mike Gould again today, and we had a couple of hours at Long Rock, Swalecliffe. We observed at least 12 Red Breasted Mergansers out at sea, and 20 + Red Throated Divers, the majority on the sea with the rest flying West towards the Swale. 2 Meadow Pipits were along the Brook and a Grey Wagtail passed over head. Blue, Great and Long-tailed Tits were seen, and a very clean headed Gull held our attention for a while, but in the end we settled on Herring , as its likely identity. We moved on to Hampton Pier at Herne Bay, for some photographs, and high tide pushed about 30 Redshanks up onto the boulders, and there were 4 Purple Sandpipers in amongst them. 1 Red Throated Diver flew West and about 60 Cormorants were flying in both directions. There was a large number of Cormorants on the end of the Pier, inaccessible to anybody without a boat.