Another day, another Falcon

 Back down in Kent so my son could take his mam to centre court at Wimbledon. I had a day out at Cliffe Pools on Tuesday and apart from seeing my first rare SHRILL CARDER BEE and before that a pair of GREAT CRESTED GREBES performing the "weed dance" the highlight was a juvenile PEREGRINE FALCON landing on the sea wall which protects the reserve and surrounding area from the mighty River Thames on the other side. After a couple of fly byes the bird reappeared barely 20 metres away giving stunning views before a Herring Gull took a dislike and dive bombed a few times causing the beauty to move on, sadly.

Two nice rare birds...... dirty rotten twitcher !

 I was already down in Kent house/ cat sitting when this bird turned up so i had to have a day (i actually went twice) birding so headed down to Worth Marsh via Sandwich Bay Observatory. 

ELEANORAS FALCON

This wasn't the only Falcon present..... a Red-footed Falcon and numerous Hobbies hunted the surrounding fields. On my first visit within a period of thirty minutes i had the Red-footed, a Hobby and then the Eleanoras. All slightly too distant for decent images but it was a memorable half hour.

Saturday gone i picked up Gary from Ashington at 4 a.m. for our trip up to Long Nanny to see the other rarity.

AMERICAN BLACK TERN

On arrival at Long Nanny we had nine Little Gull on or around the tank blocks close to the footbridge then within ten minutes the American Black Tern lifted doing a quick circuit then back down into the marran grass. Easy peasy ??? Sadly not, this was our only sighting and my images aren't the best but fantastic seeing it in flight. I spent more time watching the bird than taking pics thinking i'd concentrate more on that on it's next flight. Little Terns doing well according to wardens despite the high tides. The close proximity to nesting Arctic Terns was in fact the highlight of the morning. And they didn't once make a deposit or try to draw blood !!!

ARCTIC TERN

....and what it's all about NEW LIFE