Last week Keith and I met up in Gravesend for a walk along the River Thames. The tide was out and so there was plenty of mud for the birds to feed on.
On the first section there was only gulls, mainly Black-headed with a few Herring Gulls. A Peregrine flew over the shore line, which was a first sighting for us on this site and later we had a Swallow fly past. As we approached the Marina inlet we could here Mediterranean Gull calling and eventually located 4-6 amongst the Black-headed Gulls.
On the far side of the inlet there were Black-tailed Godwit, Oystercatcher, Shelduck and a single Redshank.
From here we entered Gordon Gardens. Keith thought he heard a Cetti’s warbler, but unfortunately it did not call / sing again and so we were unable to confirm that. The number of Moorhen on the lake were down on the usual numbers and there were no swans that day.
After lunch we had decided to focus on the ‘ravine’, a sharp sided cutting which sits between the gardens and the fort in the hope that we might find some newly arrived migrants.
We did find a couple of chiffchaffs and a Blackcap, but nothing else apart from the usual residents. There were a good number of Small White Butterflies, together with a few Orange Tips and a mating pair of Green-veined Whites.
On one bush we found a dozen Dock bugs and around 8 Nursery Web spiders, plus a number of 7 spot Ladybirds in the vegetation along the ravine.
Leaving the site we checked out the gardens of the old Fort for butterflies but didn’t find any. We did find 2 Firebugs to add to our list of invertebrates for the day.
Pete's Favourite Things 