Surprisingly …Grain!

I’ve recently been visiting the scrub and coastal bushes at Grain in north west Kent or to give it its proper name Grain Country Park although you wouldn’t see a sign to confirm that. Most of the time the amount of scrub and bushes is just daunting for a single observer to cover and you don’t end up seeing that much anyway but last Sunday was different. On arriving at Grain car park I had barely gone 60 yards and had already noted 1 redstart and 10+ lesser whitethroats. It was already an unprecedented visit and I was mildly panicking due to the number of migrants that I was seeing and hearing all by myself. As I wandered along the footpath that borders what is left of Clubb pits I had a group of 8 Lapland buntings fly west and they were followed by a further group of 4 a few minutes later. I continued to pick up whinchats and garden warblers, whitethroats and blackcaps. I then moved to the scrub areas bordering the Swale and added pied flycatcher and willow warbler. Also managed to clock up 8 species of butterfly as well. A great morning, fingers crossed I get another one like it soon, although it is Grain I’m writing about.