Wet wet wet

The forecast looked decent last night for East Kent - northeasterly winds with rain overnight. Though the rain persisted, we got wet and the birds decided to keep hiding. Starting off at dawn at King George V memorial park in Ramsgate, trying to re-live the Bluetail dream 4 years ago but with, predictably, no result bar a Chiffchaff and a few crests. Punctuated by a breakfast stop to shelter from the lousy weather, it was the same story at Northdown Park and Shuart too, with a similar line up of species though quite a few thrushes were passing through.

Wanting to get something out of the day, we headed back west towards Faversham and with the rain intensifying, thought we'd played another poor move. However, after a brief wait we got back out into the elements and hot footed it along the seawall from the Sportman's pub at Seasalter. There was a Wheatear looking pretty bedraggled, and loads of Dark-bellied Brents on the mud - good to see them back in force including several juveniles. And a mile or so on, I picked out the adult Red-breasted Goose feeding close in with the flock. Best views I've had of this species in the UK (a wild one at least), though it seemed not to be greatly appreciated by the accompanying Brents, which behaved agressively towards it (just look at the middle image above!).

School's out Friday. Bring on the Azores.