I cycled across to King George VI Park, in the wonderful autumn sunshine, with high hopes of finding something along the coastal fringe - what a "numb-nut" The park held just 2 Firecrest and a Chiffchaff, with a few Skylark moving south overhead. Quite how I managed to spend 45 minutes searching through the three plantations is a puzzle, Great, Blue and Long-tailed Tits were very active around the park, with several roving flocks present. I have to be honest, I fancied my chances of a Black Redstart, so cycled the cliff-top before dropping down Madeira Walk to the harbour. With the benefit of hindsight, I have to wonder why I bothered, the harbour held a couple of Rock Pipits whilst my cycle along the under cliff produced nothing more than Redshank, Oystercatcher, Turnstone, Grey Plover and Curlew on the mussel beds of the western under cliff. Pushing the bike up the Chine to arrive at Courtstairs Park was another wasted effort, single Chiffchaff and Firecrest were hardly inspirational.
Suppression on Thanet? A geographic area, not a club or society, birded by a number of local individuals, some of whom choose to keep their sightings to themselves, their prerogative! I wonder how many local birders would like to have had the opportunity to try for an Olive-backed Pipit in a private field, viewable from the Ancient Highway (a public right of way), that was at Sandwich Bay in October. This austere Observatory decided to withhold information from the birding public for reasons best known to themselves. How they explain this action to their paying membership is for the SBBOT to sort out. I know that if I paid subscriptions to an Observatory (the clue's in the title!) I'd expect to hear about the birds they had recorded - not a particularly radical view point, I feel?
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