Friday 8 June 2018

June 8th
On a much brighter morning than recently we walked from Chamber's Wall to Coldharbour and on to the Oyster Farm lagoons and saw 1 Cuckoo, 1 Lesser Whitethroat, 1 Cetti's Warbler, 8 Whitethroats, 4 Goldfinches, 1 Grasshopper Warbler "reeling", 7 Oystercatchers, 3 Little Egrets, 1 Marsh Harrier, 1 Fulmar E, 6 Ringed Plovers, 1 Kestrel, 7 Linnets, 1 Mallard, 3 Mute Swans, 1 Common Tern and 1 Turtle Dove. We also found 2 Painted Ladies.

Grasshopper Warbler

This afternoon we visited the Sand Martin nest holes at Reculver and Bishopstone and found them very busy. At Reculver there were 81 nest holes in use with 20 at Bishopstone.
Below is a table summarising nest hole numbers over the last ten years showing the fluctuations from 62 to 203 with an average of 130. These fluctuations are caused by weather both here but probably more importantly in there wintering quarters in Sub-Saharan Africa as well as winter storms and rain eroding the cliffs between Reculver and Bishopstone and destroying the nest holes.

Sand Martin Counts 2009-2018

YEAR
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
Holes in use
62
180
120
152
not counted
85
203
158
112
101



Sand Martins at nest holes



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