Birding Abroad (5th August)

ENGLISH CHANNEL

My first holiday abroad for at least 2 years!  My mum, brother and I took the 9:30am boat from Dover to Calais before driving for the rest of the day to get to west Germany to visit relatives in Rheinland-Pflaz.  On the English side of the Channel, there were at least 30+ Gannets, several Common Terns, and 3 KITTIWAKES (a year tick), mostly flying south.  On the French side of the Channel, more than 15 Kittiwakes, 1 Gannet, 5 Common Scoters and dozens more Common Terns flew past.

RESERVE NATURELLE DU PLATIER D'OYE (SOMEWHERE EAST OF CALAIS)

My mum dropped my brother and I of at a local reserve with a long name which I cann't be bothered to type again east of Calais for an hour and a half before we continued.  Most of the landscape consisted of dunes and low scrubland, followed by a wide exstensive beach with a turquoise sea.  Birds of note included 10 flyover Whimbrel, 11 Common Scoters on the sea, 3 Turnstone, 1 Sanderling dozens of Ringed Plovers and amongst them my first life tick of the holiday abroad, no less than 45 KENTISH PLOVERS!  Butterflies where also numerous and included several Gatekeepers, 6+ Speckled Woods, 1 Red Admiral and another new butterfly species, 3 GRAYLING.

Ephraim in the distance on the beach at Oye-Plage

Kentish Plovers

Grayling

Southern Emerald Damselfly

Ruddy Darter

RASTPLATZ NEAR LUXEMBURG

We stopped once before reaching Germany, I wondered of a bit and as well as seeing 4 White Wagtails (a subspecies I haven't seen since my visit to Staines), 2 Hares best of all was a Black Redstart (a common garden bird on the continent almost the equivalent of a Robin in Britain).