Cliffe RSPB

September 19th



Prior to visiting a peregrine site I firstly dropped into Cliffe to see if any waders were on show, the time was around 8.00am.High tide was forecast later in the morning so I was not expecting many of the ‘ Thames’ roosting waders, Black Tailed Godwit, Avocet etc…
As it turned out it wasn’t a bad morning with a good assortment of waders and I stayed longer than I intended, the highlight in waders I expect would be a single Spotted Redshank and 10 Ruff.

 The Spotted Redshank was on the main pool where most roost and the Ruff were on the end Pool viewed from the raised mound.
Other waders included 6 Greenshank, 100 +Lapwing, 4 Green Sandpiper, 5 Snipe, 2 Curlew, Grey Plover, Bar Tailed Godwit and 200 odd Black Tailed Godwits.
As I stayed until 10.30am I saw the Blackwits piling in to roost, unusually, although it is still early I didn’t see any Avocet.

Other birds of interest seen were 2 Common Buzzards, a Marsh Harrier, around 70 Wigeon and a female Sparrowhawk.
A very distant Falcon bunching a Starling flock up could well have been a Merlin as it looked a little on the small side, too far to id though.
Hirundines were well represented with a flock of 80 odd, the majority being House Martins with just a few Sand Martins mixed in.
No photos unfortunately, nearly all were out of camera range.