CATCH THE PIGEON !

In the words of Dick Dastardly we could have easily caught it today!  With Heathy mourning the departure of our chums the Shorelarks a new buddy has arrived at Reculver. After escorting Chris Hindle down to Cold Harbour earlier in the week our newest friend "Sammy" the Racing Pigeon followed us down to the fisherman's car park at Chambers Wall, a distance of around 3 miles, walking most of the way!  For a very flattering portrait of "Sammy" see Marc's blog!  Oh, by the way, we did see a few birds today - with my year list adding six new species.  Besides the Pigeon the first bird to make our notebooks was one of four Common Sandpiper.  Yellow Wagtails were more conspicuous today as were Sedge Warbler.  Marc bothered to count 27 Turnstone feeding on the Oyster beds as 3 Eider lounged offshore.  6 Shelduck flew over the Oyster Farm and a single Greenshank made its presence felt. For most of the session any bird that Marc wanted to photograph decided to fly away and tantalisingly out of camera reach and this was the case of both Wheatear and a very smart male White Wagtail.  As we moved inland I soon added Reed Warbler and Cuckoo.  Lots of Whitethroat were seen and a single Lesser Whitethroat made it five new species for the year.  On a very uneventful walk along the Green Wall and back along the Sea Wall a single Whimbrel made the notebook.  Hopefully, we'll meet up with the pigeon again at the weekend.