Oriental Turtle Dove Otford Kent

News yesterday that the Kent birders had finally pinned down the Oriental Turtle Dove had me twitching last night (to coin a phrase) I woke early and made an easy call to drive the 40 miles down to Kent arriving just before 7am to find a small group of birders on site with news that the bird had just dropped from the dead tree to feed in the garden. Nearly an hour went by before the bird had enjoyed it's breakfast and returned to the dead tree to give me my first ever views of this species having not taken the opportunity to visit the last back garden one in Oxford.

The bird moved to deep cover in another fully leaved tree and could just about be seen with a scope if you knew where to look showing a nice black arrow on the under tail.

Twitching these back garden birds always seems a bit uncomfortable although the small group were well behaved I left them to it and made it home by 9am to put a couple of brownie points back in the empty brownie point bag and the last thing you want is for that bag to be empty. I've now cut the grass and hoovered just to top it up a bit further ready for the next little birding adventure that might take my fancy.

LIFE LIST NOW 370
Year list 218

The view with the naked eye

And at 8x....but better through the scope!