15th-22nd August ends with Short-eared owl fest

This last week has been pretty good by recent standards. A nice variety of waders have been returning, I twitched the white rumped sandpiper and  today Steve Ashton and myself enjoyed a wonderful 90 minutes with short eared owls.
I had 3 trips up to Oare for the white rumped sandpiper. I saw it on 2 of the 3 trips but when I saw it it was always very distant and almost immediately flew further away.........typical. Some little stints came within camera range though.

White-rumped sandpiper

Little stint

On Restharrow waders numbers have been lower but the species count has been pretty good with common, wood and green sandpiper. Green and spotted redshank. Black-tailed godwit, snipe, ruff and yesterday (Thursday) the amazing sight of 4 Temminck's stints.

Wood sandpiper

Green sandpiper

Black-tailed godwit

Ruff

Green shank

Spotted redshank

Temminck's stints

On the duck front female red-crested pochard that seems very pally with a tufted duck and a couple of gargany have been around.

Red-crested pochard

Garganey

On land however things have been more difficult, A few whinchats are around but as per normal I can't get near them and the wheatears are still in residence just south of the sailing club.

On Friday afternoon I met up with Steve near Dickson's corner to wait for the SEOs to show. We sat in some long grass and eventually had all 4 around us and on at least one occasion we had one directly overhead. A whimbrel also flew past but we were looking into the sun and the pictures where rubbish.

Short-eared owl

Thanks to anyone who still looks out for my postings. I've not being doing any because I've been spending most of my time at Sandwich and Ian posts a daily update of the highlights somewhat negating my belated efforts. Rest assured that when I have something to say I will.