Wet weather birds

Occasionally you see Herring Gulls doing a sort of stomp on the grass at the top of Bay Hill. They're not keeping their feet warm while waiting for a bus (which won't came at the moment), and it's not the latest dance. When the grass is wet this form of stamping up and down is supposed to cause worms to come to the top of the ground and the omnivorous gulls are quite partial to the occasional earth warm.

Another earth worm feeder is the Curlew. At the moment there are quite a few on the fields on Worth Marshes, easily seen along the Ancient Highway. The soft ground makes probing with their exceptionally long beaks easy and they regularly come up with sizeable worms.

The calmer day allowed the small birds to feed back in the garden and I counted over 20 Chaffinches feeding this morning. Ian Hodgson, the warden, told me that there had been a good movement of Chaffinches at the observatory this morning. After yesterdays weather I didn't put the moth traps out.

A reminder for anyone in the village that there is a presentation in the Village Hall tomorrow (Wednesday 12th) at 6pm called "Go low carbon in St Margaret's at Cliffe".