Kittiwake on Toast

Trying to find somewhere interesting to go is getting increasingly difficult in this miserable weather. My first thought was Grove but I woke up too late and all the harriers would have departed by the time I got there. My second idea was the cliff tops (raven perhaps?) but when I got to South Foreland the wind was vicious so that thought was shelved. Thus I ended up at Deal pier.

Sea watching from Deal pier has one great advantage – it has a café for when you get fed up with nothing going past and when I arrived it looked as if I’d soon be going there as all I could find were 3 gt crested grebes near the beach and a lone guillemot in the middle distance.

I then spotted a juvenile kittiwake hanging in the wind around the pier so I got the camera out and fired off a few shots.

Kittiwake - 1st winter

This was fortunate because a few minutes later a few things started flying past (though it must be said often quite distant).

First up was a/the guillemot:

Guillemot

Then a very distant razorbill followed by a red throated diver (the first of 5 seen going nowhere in particular):

Red-throated diver

A few shots of the kittiwake then a distant flock of 4 great crested grebes went past to go with the 3 I’d seen fishing close by.

Great Crested Grebes

There was a bit of a kittiwake movement south about 9.30 -10.00 where 17 went past – mainly 1^st winters along with another 4 auks went south.

Kittiwake - 1st winter

I was just packing up when I noticed an adult kit approaching which then had a flutter over something – toast!

Kittiwake on toast