15th December 2013 - Lower Halstow and Isle of Sheppey

Down to Kent in the blustery weather to hopefully hunt down a Black Brant.  It was really awful weather to be birding, that horrible stinging sheets of rain that makes it impossible to see anything and the freezing cold to go with it.  Whilst driving around trying to find the field that contained the flock of Brent Geese that the Black Brant was hanging out with, we had an unexpected and rather odd encounter with a Sparrowhawk which ran down the lane in front of the car for a good while.  Very odd.

We eventually found the flock due a very helpful lovely gentleman on Twitter and set about scanning it to find the odd one out.  With the weather this was clearly going to take some time so the three of us decided to take shifts with the scope, warming up in the car when it wasn't our turn.  Stuart eventually found the elusive bird and there was great delight all round - it was a good bird to see and we could finally all get back in the car!  I was hoping to see the Whimbrel that had been seen near there recently but unfortunately with the weather and not being entirely sure of the right location, we had to give that a miss.  No 2013 Whimbrel for me!

The plan was to then go on to the Isle of Sheppey to see what we could find there but the weather was abysmal at that stage so we settled down in the Ferry House Inn for some lovely grub.

Trip list: 25
Year list: 193
Lifers of year list: 28