Yet more grebes (divers too)
29th January 2008, TuesdayThe continuing calm weather allowed me to do a more thorough count of GC Grebes in the bay. I began at Winchelsea Beach and worked westwards. There seems to be very few in the eastern half of the bay, and birds were only thinly scattered until I got west of the Pools, when denser flocks appeared. In moving from point to point, I was careful to avoid duplicating counts, and erred on the side of caution when suspecting an overlap. The last group was right round past Fairlight Cove in Darkest TQ81Q, rather hard to see and the tide was coming up, so I may have missed a few more there.
The total was 691 birds - more than I can recall ever seeing before. About 400 of these were between the Pools and Cliff End.
In addition, I could see many divers further out. In Fairlight Cove there were 50, including 8 Red-throats right in close in the shallows. Altogether there must have been well over 100.
Once I had finished, I joined some other folks on the seawall, enjoying the fine weather and good views of Grebes and RT Divers, the latter coming closer and closer as the tide rose. Several Kittiwakes were flying back and forth further out.
When I went to have a look at the 36 White-fronted Geese, I was surprised to see that one sported a black neck-ring, marked HKV in white. I await news on the origin of this bird.
