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