Local stuff. Stuff I've seen locally.

Token good picture

Despite the best efforts of work and band schedules and rapidly decreasing daylight hours I've managed to see a few almost interesting birds locally in the last couple of weeks. Admittedly, these have mostly been peregrines, with the regular Rainham birds seen almost daily from the train and the pair I see from the flat showing themselves roughly every week. I've still not worked out whether these are the same birds as those at Rainham and I've yet to see them coming or going from their perch. The flat list itself has grown slowly, to 51. I added goldcrest, shittily, with a distant calling bird, and med gull, shittily, with a disgusting first-winter bird that took me a day or two to work out from bad notes. Decent seabirds produced by the recent long westerly blast included several arctic terns and best of all a shag.

The local linnet flock has grown to 12 and yellow-legged gulls are still frequent, but waders, surprisingly, have become much scarcer as the autumn has progressed. The oystercatchers that were a daily fixture when we moved in have all gone, passage waders like common sandpiper (max seen was 6), whimbrel (1) and sanderling (4) have all long since passed. We're left with the occasional curlew, redshank or dunlin - I'm still waiting for plovers ringed, golden and grey, lapwings and godwits, all of which must be possible. I've still yet to see any waders flying along the river as the tide rises. Future flat-list ticks have been hinted at - I've had a flock of 50 odd redwings and singles of shoveler, siskin and redpoll overhead on the walk to the station, but none have yet been in the "recording area". Like the arctic skua I'm going to get, or the short-eared or barn owl that's definitely going to grace Swanscombe Marsh one evening, it's just a matter of time. Similarly, dunnock, great tit and grey wagtail are just a matter of time. I'm sitting here now as the sun goes down, one eye to a scope... not that I'm likely to get dunnock or great tit on the river. We've had a couple of common seals, but as yet, no porpoises.

Note suppressed caspian tern on river in background

Definitely not a drowning dog

I've made a few quick visits to Rainham. It's so close now that a spare two hours can give me over an hour and a half on site, so there's no excuse not to go. However, newfound enthusiasm or not, these trips have been pretty dire - Rainham is having an appalling year - but there have been a few highlights. The girl and I have had brief views of bearded tits and up at the mound the other we had a bullfinch calling in the scrub below, a first for me at Rainham. On the tip we spent a great 20 minutes with a kestrel as it hunted spiders in the grass, unbothered by our presence, and we counted nearly 50 redshanks and a few curlews in the bay. Earlier today, there was a marsh harrier hunting and eating between Aveley Pools and the centre, a couple of common buzzards overhead and a small selection of waders - 3 each of snipe, black-tailed godwit and redshank and a couple of dunlin.

The best picture you'll ever see of a buzzard having a bad day

Stock doves are severely underrated birds.

As mentioned briefly before I made a flying visit to East Tilbury for the semi-palmated sandpiper and while I've not been in Orsett as much since moving to Grays, I've still had a couple of buzzards and, earlier today, the little owl in its usual haunt. 

Semi-palmated sandpiper. Honest.

And there we have it. A shitty update that serves no purpose other than to show me that even without doing too much "proper" birding, I've still managed to see a few birds. Perhaps I should stop complaining. Will I? 

Haha. Will I fuck.

Tonight, I'm drinking Bombardier, and it's disappointing. But then I'm comparing it to the last bottled ales I've had in - Doombar, Tribute, and various Otter Brewery beers. It tastes very chemically. Oh well.