There has been a most amazing Autumn Migration going on here in Kent this year. I subscribe to Bird Guides who send me email alerts of local sightings of  interesting birds and so I know that fantastic birds such as Goldcrests, Firecrests, Yellow Browed Warblers and Ring Ouzels are currently dotted around all over this little area of East Kent. So there has to be quite a likelihood that we have some unusual birds right here on the meadows or in the hedgerows right now if only we sit quietly armed with our identification books and spot them and work out what they are.

With this thought in mind, we have been a little bit more observant of whats flitting around at the moment and have been going out to do yet more raking of the meadows but now with binoculars strung round our necks.

To date, we haven’t seen anything that we should be thinking of alerting Bird Guides to. But we were sitting having a cup of tea in the orchard this afternoon and a lovely yellow Willow warbler was poking about in the hedges right by us.

The fields are alive with swooping swallows and martins at the moment and some of the swallows brush the surface of the pond to take a drink. Presumably they are all gathering awaiting a north wind to carry them southwards away from us until next summer.

This weekend we have flocks of rising and falling goldfinches (gangs of 40+ birds) in the second meadow. Most of this meadow has not been cut and the birds are congregating on the knapweed stalks to eat the seeds – an unexpected benefit of not having got round to cutting this meadow yet.