Isle Of Grain

I've been out of the country for a while enjoying a holiday in Madagascar of which i'll be posting a 'knol' soon with a link to it from this blog. Whilst this weather may not be good for finding birds in north Kent it certainly is very pleasant to wander about in and I found myself at Grain this morning. There were unexpectededly good numbers of butterflies still on the wing. At one time I had 5 red admirals enjoying the nectar of a mature ivy along with several small whites and small coppers. My list for 3 hours of slow wandering was:
Red admiral 6, wall 1, small copper 3, small white 6, large white 1, migrant hawker 5, common darter 20, brent goose 24 flying into the swale, goldcrest 6, chiffchaff 4, med gull 1 ad wint, swallow 22s, house martin 2 s, siskin 3, blackcap 2, redpoll 2, little egret 4, stonechat 2 and whinchat 1.
It was also good to see that the outflow from Grain power station was in operation. In the past at the right time of year this has attracted feeding terns and associated skuas, i'm hoping that it isn't just a one off.

---