A day's birding at Rye Harbour and Pett's level with my mentor and his daughter, another bird (and reptile) expert. The day started warm but fairly grey and as usual in that part of the world there was a fairly strong wind turning the big turbines in the background. Beyond the wind farm, more electricity being generated at the distant nuclear power station.
As the day progressed it became more and more sunny until it was a beautiful late Summer afternoon.
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| Typical flora |
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The landscape is open and wild but far from barren with Viper's Bugloss, Sea Kale, Yellow Horned Poppy and many other wild plants growing through the salty soil and shingle and the grassy areas also populated by cows and sheep, including a flock of Herdwicks.
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| This art project seat plays musical and natural sounds on several preset themes such as "Spring" |
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| Sightings board |
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We walked up past the various small ponds and along to various hides overlooking pools, paying a visit to the beach itself along the way.
There were no rare birds and indeed a fairly sparse scattering even of the more common ones but among them were two favourites of mine: Oystercatchers and Terns (in this case both Common and Sandwich). We also saw Yellow Wagtails, Turnstones, Dunlin, Little Egrets, Wheatears, Dunnock, Linnets, and a Whimbrel.
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| The star Tern? |
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During lunch, in one of the hides, we saw a "stack" of birds of prey with a Marsh Harrier at the lower level, a Sparrowhawk above her and a Kestrel hovering high over the top. Completing our circuit back to the car, we headed home via a couple of further birding interludes at Pett's Level where we saw Curlew, Gadwall, Lapwings and a Black-tailed Godwit. A Mute Swan, making heavy weather of flying against the wind dropped down onto the water in front of an audience of Greylag Geese.
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| To the beach |
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| The beach, not quite as deserted as it looks |
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| View from a hide |
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| Plenty of bird food about at the moment |
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On the return journey we found ourselves following one of Google's camera vehicles so I took a photograph: The biter, bit.
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