Here We Go

I have decided to do a blog about my birding exploits around the Cliftonville cliff tops in the hour or so I have in the mornings before I have to leave for work in darkest Faversham, this being about 90% of my birding time these days. As I start at 10am I do have the chance to get out most mornings on the newly purchased bicycle from now until around October before the mornings darken again. It also gives me the chance to keep a little fitter and perhaps reduce the middle age spread that has developed over the winter. Then again....

 

Foreness and the surrounding grassy slopes are only five minutes away on the bike and early mornings are my favourite part of the day with less people being present and less dogs too. Plenty of scope for some good birds to occur here in migration times and a part of Kent that seems to get the scarce stuff with much more frequency than elsewhere, although the coverage has suffered a lot in recent years and is probably at it's lowest ebb since the early eighties. We'll see what happens here..

The first signs that birds are starting to move is already happening and over the weekend the odd Siskin and Rook passed overhead and this brute of a Herring Gull, which has to be an "argentatus" bird and probably from the northern part of their range, also drifted past.



"argentatus" Herring Gull