27th November 2020 - Coalhouse Fort and Kingsdown

A good visit to Coalhouse Fort for the next instalment of wintering bird surveys. The scarcest birds for the site was a Great Crested Grebe on the river, only my second site record. Three Mute Swans on the river was also unusual. These birds were complimented by the usual suite of waders comprised mainly of Dunlin, Avocet, Grey Plover and Curlew. There were also three Bar-tailed Godwits, 36 Black-tailed Godwits, an Oystercatcher and 14 Redshank. Wildfowl comprised 302 Teal, 10 Wigeon, 10 Dark-bellied Brent Geese and four Shelduck. Also of note was 135 Lapwing on the new scrape roughly c1.5km north of the fort. 

After the survey, I headed to Kingsdown with Dad for the CRAG MARTIN. The journey was going extremely well until we got to St Margaret's at Cliffe where google maps directed us down a very narrow road which linked to Kingsdown. We drove down here for c1.5 miles where all of a sudden we found three concrete bollards in the middle of the road. There was only room for one car, we tried to do a three point turn but this resulted in getting the car stuck between the hedges on either side of the road. The tyres starting spinning in slippy mud and after some help from some cyclists passing we managed to get the car back onto the tarmac and Dad done an excellent job of reversing the car uphill (!) for c1.5 miles up the long narrow track. Whilst it sounds like this took a long time in reality it lost us around 20 minutes! Lesson to self, don't always trust Google Maps!!! 

We were now back on track and joined up with the main road to Kingsdown and we arrived on site after 10 minutes. We arrived to find a lot of glum looking birders who announced the bird hadn't been seen since 09:30 when it flew over the cliff. It was around 12:45 and we stuck it out till 15:45 it was now extremely cold and having only seen two Common Scoter, three Rock Pipits and a Peregrine we were feeling rather miserable and decided to head back to the car and head for home. Luckily as we turned back towards the car, a fellow birder shouted "CRAG MARTIN flying along the cliff". We instantly turned around and enjoyed good views of the bird hawking up and down the cliff for around 5 minutes before it settled on a rock and went to roost where we enjoyed excellent views. 

CRAG MARTIN, Kingsdown, Kent

A happy journey was had back to Sussex and we reminisced on what had been an eventful day and the what if's. Certainly a twitch I won't forget for a long time for various different reasons!!!!