Kent Chronicles

It has been a long old time since the Gnome-mobile had hit the road - indeed it was all the way back in January when I'd gone to see the American Robin. Since then I've been birding away on my local Port Meadow patch and waiting for something really good to turn up that I "needed" and which was within my driving time tolerance. In the back of my mind was also one of the last southern orchid species that I still needed namely Late Spider Orchids down in Kent - now was the perfect time to go and see them. The trouble was that whilst I quite enjoy seeing Orchids, if I'm honest they're not really my passion and I had to ask myself whether I could be bothered with a two and a half hour drive just to go and see an Orchid that looks very similar to the Early Spider Orchids that I'd already seen. What I really needed was something else in the area to make the trip more worthwhile. My prayers were answered in no uncertain terms when news broke of an Eleonora's Falcon that had been found in Kent. Initially photographed and posted to Twitter as a Hobby on Thursday it was soon re-identified as an Eleonora's. After that it was relocated the next day at Worth Marshes which it seemed to find to its liking as it stayed put, showing obscenely well to those who made the journey. Indeed as the "first twitchable"  for Britain" lots of people had gone to see it and Twitter was awash with pictures and "in the bag" messages.

Now as you know, I'm not really a drop everything on news type of twitcher. For one thing I have family commitments and I like to choose my trips carefully on distance and chances of seeing the bird etc.  However, the Eleonora's would combine very nicely with my orchid trip and at two and a half hours wasn't too much of a stretch on the driving front. What's more on Saturday an, admittedly very elusive, Sardinian Warbler had been found at South Foreland which was right between the Falcon location and the orchid one. So everything was lining up nicely! However, Saturday I had agreed to help my VLW start to clear out the loft so it wasn't until Sunday morning that I was free for a sortie. Unusually for me, I decided to get up early (by my standards) and head off rather than waiting on news. The reason for this was that with two target birds there was a high chance that at least one of them would still be around and in any event I had my orchids to fall back on. As it turned out I needn't have worried as when I got up at 6am the news was already out (posted at 4:55am no less!) that the Falcon was present, sitting in a bush waiting for things to warm up. It did this the previous day and it wasn't until about 11am that it got flying so if things played out like Saturday then I should have already seen it by then. So it was in an optimistic frame of mind that I set off at around 6:40 am on the fairly quiet Sunday morning roads on the long slog down to Kent.

En route things started to go a bit pear shaped with news of "no further sign" of the Falcon. Hmmm, that was worrying! Had the colder weather (it was much cooler today with a stiff northerly breeze) forced it to head off? Fortunately the Sardinian Warbler was about, still being elusive and "heard only" but at least still present. In the absence of the Falcon I reprogrammed Google Maps for the Warbler and continued on my journey. Indeed I was literally only 3 minutes from St. Margaret's at Cliff where I needed to park when the "still present" news came out for the Falcon. I pulled into a layby and did the maths. It was less than twenty minutes back to the Falcon so I reset Google Maps back to the Falcon and a little while later I was pulling into a well organised field car park, manned by RSPB volunteers. I tooled up, opting for my winter coat in the chilly wind, and yomped off along the footpath. After a little while I came to a small group of twitchers on the edge of a field all scoping something intently. This turned out to be the Falcon which could be viewed somewhat distantly across the far side of the field in a Hawthorn bush. It was all that easy though the views were distinctly heat hazy and distant. I set about taking some video though the haze was so bad that I won't insult you by showing it to you. After a while I realised that there were lots more twitchers on the far side of the field than were on our side. By following the footpath further round I eventually joined them where I could see why everyone was on this side. The Falcon was sitting, looking rather cold and miserable in a Hawthorn tree no more than 15 yards from the path. It didn't seem to mind the people at all even at that distance. However, as it was on the far side of its chosen Hawthorn, better views were to be had a bit further away so I settled on a more distant spot and went about my digiscoping.

A video grab when the bird was briefly actually looking up

How the bird more usually looked: head tucked away from us out of the wind

Some video of it having a preen

In addition to the star bird, there was a bonus female Red-footed Falcon to be had as well. This had been around the last couple of days and could be viewed on the other side of the path looking disconsolate in a distant Hawthorn. It was amazing to have two rare Falcons on view from the same spot!

The female Red-footed Falcon, looking cold and miserable in a distant Hawthorn

Time passed and we all waited for the star bird to fly though in the cold weather I didn't think that was going to happen in a hurry. A shout went up as a Golden Oriole flew across the path and over the wood but as I was towards the back of the footpath I never managed to get onto it. With two other targets in mind and the weather not favouring any change in the Falcon's behaviour any time soon I decided to head off again after only about an hour of paying homage to this national Mega. As I wandered back along the track I enjoyed the supporting cast of Sedge and Reed Warblers belting out there songs from the ditches. There were also some Avocets on the scrape in the same field and I'd lucked in on a fly-over Turtle Dove (a local speciality) on my way out to the Falcon viewing spot. It had been a few years since I'd last seen one of these so it was a nice bonus. 

The obligatory twitch crowd shot - the bird is in the top left-hand corner of the left hand of the two bushes 

Back at the car I set the Sat Nav back to St. Margaret's at Cliff and some twenty minutes later I found a parking spot and tooled up, asking a returning birder where to go and how he'd got on. He told me that he'd only heard it once during the entire time and no one had seen it. So it was looking like a fairly hopeless task but I thought I'd at least try to get to hear it. At the end of the main road there was an entrance through a kissing gate and then a slog up a very steep path to the top of the hill where a group of birders were all staking out a surprisingly small clump of very dense scrub. In addition to this were several medics and even an ambulance - what was going on??!! Had the strain of trying to see a Sardinian Warbler proved too much for someone? It turned out that a birder had gone over on his ankle by standing in a rabbit hole and had had to be rescued. 

After this drama I turned my attention back to the birding. There were two groups standing around on either side of the narrow clump of dense scrub and I went to join them on one side. On asking, no one had heard it for a while and no one had seen it. There were various birds flitting around in the scrub with the odd Robin, Blackbird and Goldfinch to be glimpsed as they went about their business. After a while a shout went up from the other side and we all hurried around. I'd made the mistake of bringing my scope along so had to bundle together all my gear and run after the crowd which was following a Sylvia warbler down the slope to a clump more sheltered bushes. 

In case anyone is interested in going for the bird: the yellow circle is the kissing gate; the red circle is the main scrub area; the green circle is the alternate scrub area

We all stood around in breathless expectation for a while until the bird flew out again though it turned out to be a Lesser Whitethroat. False alarm and we all trudged back up to the original area again. After quite a while once again there was a shout and this time three people had definitely seen the bird, again on the far side from where I was standing. We all piled round and peered intently at the spot where it had been seen. The trouble was that the bird was staying deep within the cover and just because someone had got lucky on a particular angle didn't mean that the bird would necessarily pass through that small window again any time soon. I moved slightly and changed my viewing angle to watch another area. After a while I was rewarded with the briefest of views of something the right shape and colour (a very deep grey) flitting past a gap before disappearing again. Could that have been it? Everything that I'd seen seemed to match up OK but it was frustratingly brief.

The Warbler bushes - most people had stopped trying by this stage. At a peak there were more than twenty people there

More time passed. Someone tried some playback and at one point it was heard to call back though frustratingly I didn't hear it myself. After all this time I'd just had the one brief "probable" glimpse to show for my efforts. It was well past the two hours I'd given myself to try to see this skulking so and so and people were just lounging around chatting when the bird was heard again to call very loudly from the seaward side of the upper path in an adjacent bit of scrub. We all hurried over there and the bird called and sang loudly right in front of us a number of times deep in the bushes. Surely it was going to show itself now? A cry went up as the bird apparently broke cover and darted back to the other side of the path, back in the original area. Frustratingly I was looking the wrong way when this happened so never saw it fly. I hung around for a bit longer but by now everyone was chatting away and not bothering to look and I really had run out of time so I had to head back to the car. Still, I'd heard it well enough and had had one brief glimpse of what was almost certainly it. I could count this as a definite heard-only accompanied by a "probable" glimpse. The bottom line was that even if I'd seen it break cover the view would have been so crap that I would still want to see another one when the opportunity presented itself. So for now it's going down on the list as heard-only and I'll take an opportunity to firm this up at some point in the future.

Back in the car and I headed off for the 30 minute drive toward where I'd been given a location for Late Spider Orchids. Shortly into this leg of the journey the heavens opened up and indeed it was still raining by the time I was parking up in a tiny little layby and getting ready. So it was on with the waterproof trousers as I headed off along the path a short distance to where I'd been told the orchids were located. They were in a fenced off area with one "sacrificial" one left outside the fence for photographs. It rather looked like several people had not seen the exterior one as it was looking rather trampled. Still, as the rain finally stopped I set about taking some photos. I was pleasantly surprised to see some Man Orchids within the fenced off area as well - I'd not know about those though Kent is a well know county for them.

I was able to reach carefully through the electrified fence to get close enough to take a photo of this Late Spider Orchid

The super-zoomed shots came out OK as well

A clump of Man Orchids within the fenced off area

The one Man Orchid outside the fenced-off area

An early Pyramidal Orchid

After having taken the best photos that I could manage given the distance that the fence created, I walked a short distance further along the path to see if I could find any other orchids of my own. There were a few Pyramidal Orchids just coming out, a couple of Common Spotted Orchids and I even found one Man Orchid on its own outside the fence. All in all it was a very pleasant way to end what had been quite a busy day. A Yellowhammer serenaded me as I walked contentedly back to the car where I de-tooled, had some tea from my flask and then pointed the car in the direction of home. The traffic on the M25 was a bit stop-start but I arrived back at Casa Gnome in time for my usual celebratory cup of tea before dinner. It had been a grand day out with three shiny new ticks - what more could anyone ask for?