Sandwich Bay Observatory

Bird Ringing Demo

Today I joined friends in my local RSPB Group for a walk at Sandwich Bay - we started at the observatory, where the staff there gave us a great demonstration of bird ringing.   Whilst we waited for the ringers to come back from the nets with the birds we concentrated on the birds we could see from the car park.   The first bird was a sparrowhawk which flew over twice.   House sparrow and chiffchaff seemed to be the most numerous birds, but there was one willow warbler too.

How many people can you get in a hide?

After a while the ringers returned with the birds in fabric bags carried carefully into the ringing hut.    Then four staff started to deal with the birds and their colleague wrote down the measurements and figures.   We watched as chiffchaff, blackcap, garden warbler and great spotted woodpecker (by far the noisiest) were all ringed, weighed, measured, aged and sexed before being released.   Thanks to all the team but especially Keith who took time to show us several birds in the hand, and explained identification points for us.

The scrape

We then moved off towards the scrape further down to road, pausing in the car park to see a mediterranean gull which was called out by one of the other birders present.  

In the fields along the road we spotted crow, jackdaw, magpie, wood pigeon, and starling.   There were also a large number of gulls - mainly black-headed - swooping over the fields but too far away for us to pick out any other potential species.  We all tried to get into the hide, but the reality was that there were far too many of us, so some of us did a bit of field scanning - lots of cows, a few cyclists but very few birds in evidence, just a couple of rather shy linnet seen by two and missed by the rest of us!   When we got into the hide however the scrape held a little egret, green sandpiper, moorhen, ringed plover and several teal.



Speckled Wood

 It was now time to move towards the sea, and we took a footpath through Restharrow Dunes Nature Reserve.   Blackbird, chiffchaff, blackcap and blue tit were using the trees and shrubs and we also saw peacock and speckled wood butterflies.   As we walked on through the woodland we noticed evening primrose and common storkbill. 

After lunch on the beach, where we saw some black-backed gulls, we walked towards the golf course, and followed the footpath along the edge of the course.   Meadow pipit and stonechat were seen, then a possible whinchat seen by two of us, but then not spotted again.   

The rest of the walk back to the observatory was quiet, and we decided to continue on to the river behind the buildings - our reward was a mute swan!

A great venue, and a good walk, but a bit quiet on the bird front.