Tuesday 4 January 2011

Tuesday 4th January 2011

After dropping my youngest lad off at nursery I did a quick scan of the East Malling Research, surprisingly only a single Waxwing, although John Clements told me he had 30 or so earlier in the morning.  Driving down Red Hill into Wateringbury I saw another 15+ Waxwings in a tree opposite The Oasts Business Village entrance - they're everywhere!

This is as good as the view from the road got today - better off staying on the footpath!

I had a text from Clare Hopson mid-afternoon to let me know there were now 81x Waxwings on the Research Station site.  I popped by briefly at 15:15 and found John Clements watching 76x Waxwings in the orchard at the back of the church.  30 or so birds were sitting up in the tree at the public footpath intersection, although light was once again awful for photography but at least the sun finally shone, albeit at 4pm!

As I left a Red Ford Focus passed me and the occupant appeared to be searching for birds.  Please can I remind everyone that this is a PRIVATE ROAD, please leave your car in East Malling (Church walk or the village hall car park behind the King & Queen pub always have spaces) and walk along the footpaths - you don't get better views than from here.  Looking from the footpath you have the light behind you, from the road you're looking directly into the sun, when it's out!

3 comments:

Paul said...

Hi Adam, I really dont quite know how we missed each other today, I was in your neck of the woods(hunting local Waxwings like ya do!) and I left the site via the church at 3.20pm! we must have passed each other?! I spoke to Clare(lovely lady too)and I also counted 80 Waxwings on the power lines. The light was changeable, but I may have got lucky with a few shots of them! Thanks once again for your blog/tip off.

Adam said...

Cheers Paul,

Glad you got to see the birds - I saw Clare later in the afternoon and she mentioned she'd met you, only made a brief visit (in the car) around 3-3:15ish so you must have been walking through the churchyard when I went past. Drop me your email or mobile number and I can always drop you a line if anything turns up. Look forward to seeing the photos on your blog.

Adam

Paul said...

Hi Adam, Cheers for that, I still need to email you about the Clare Park birds, and I would appreciate anymore tip offs too. I did mention to Clare to say Hi to you! You are right, you must have drove up the road as I walked past the church! I took quite a few pics, but I thought I would blog the pics of them bathing/drinking first! The light wasnt the best, but I might have just got some good ones of them feeding, and the sun did shine for a few pics too. cheers.