Dungeness

Monday 31st January

An early finish to a wintering bird survey in west Kent gave us enough time to fit in a quick visit to Dungeness before heading back to Sussex. Our first stop was at the fishing boats where we were assured by birder who was just leaving that things were quiet. Very little was passing (just a couple of Gannets and a Kittiwake in the half hour or so we were there) but on the very rough sea there were large numbers of Cormorants and Guillemots (but no Razorbills) and at least 20 Red-throated Divers not to mention a Grey Seal that surfaced close inshore. 

At Cook's Pool we didn't have to wait long before the two Glossy Ibises that have been around since October flew past and landed on a small pool near the reserve entrance. Although the birds were only a few metres away from the car, my attempts at photography were scuppered  by too many reeds in the way, hence the poor image below. Back in the day, Glossy Ibis was a very rare bird in the UK necessitating a visit to Stodmarsh in Kent where two long-staying individuals took up residence during the period between 1975 and 1992 and could be seen late afternoon flying over the Lampen Wall to roost. These days however it is no longer a rare bird and it seems only a matter of time before they start breeding regularly in the UK. Also seen here were a Great White Egret and a Marsh Harrier while further along the road in the sheep field at Cockles Bridge were 4 Cattle Egrets - another recent colonist and now regular at Dungeness.


The remainder of our time in Kent was spent on Walland Marsh in search of wild swans, stopping first at Dennes Road on the outskirts of Lydd where a herd of 36 Bewick's Swans (including 9 juveniles) could be seen distantly and then at Baynham Farm where 12 Bewick's and 5 Whooper Swans were fairly close to the road though the views were not that good as we were looking into the low winter sun. I can't remember the last time I saw 48 Bewick's Swans in southeast England; sadly this is a bird that is in rapid decline in Britain & Ireland with just 1,278 counted as part of the International Swan Census in January 2020, representing a new low. By comparison, 7,100 were counted in 2010 and 4,392 in 2015. Hard to believe that counts of over 100 were regularly made in the Arun Valley in West Sussex in the 70s and 80s.











Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Morocco

Image
In early May, Bridget and I visited Morocco for the third time using the services of the excellent Gayuin Birding Tours  http://gayuin.com  Most of the photographs in the blogpost that follows are mine except for a few of the better ones taken on 8th May by Hamid Birdwatching  https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100010514010519 Tuesday 3rd  May Our half full EasyJet flight from Gatwick North Terminal departed bang on time at 06:25, arriving just over 3 hours later at a cloudy Marrakech. Immigration was the usual protracted affair (how long does it take to scrutinise a passport?) but surprisingly there was no checking of our Covid paperwork and seemingly no need for the ‘mandatory’ PCR tests we’d had done less than 48 hours before. Having reclaimed our baggage and changed some money into local currency (£1 = 11.7 Dirham), we headed out of the arrival hall where the familiar face of Hamid was there to meet us and our first Moroccan birds ( Kestrel ,  Pallid Swift  and  Spotless Starl
Read more

Early Spider Orchids

Image
Saturday 23rd April 2022 seems to be a bumper year for Early Spider Orchid with reports on social media of thousands of spikes on the Purbeck Coast in Dorset. Today we made our annual pilgrimage to Castle Hill NNR, near Brighton, one of the few Sussex sites for this species, where we were treated to the fabulous sight of hundreds of plants in the short downland turf on the west facing slope in the valley bottom. I was also hoping to find Early Gentian , another rare Sussex plant known from only a handful of locations, but despite a lengthy search we drew a blank. In the blustery conditions, birds were at a premium though a Yellow Wagtail and a  Swallow passed overhead and at least 3 Lesser Whitethroats were heard singing. Also seen were a Kestrel , 2 Stock Doves , 5 Yellowhammers , a Corn Bunting and my first Wall Brown of the year. We then went to Mill Hill, sheltered from the north-easterly blast, where several Dingy Skippers  at the bottom of the slope were new for the year, a L
Read more

Little Bittern

Image
The Brown Booby found exhausted on Hove Beach on 2nd January took me back almost 34 years to one of the more improbable and memorable experiences of my birding lifetime. It's a tale that's been told before but hopefully people won't mind if I tell again, especially as it took place no more than a mile to the west of where the Booby was found.  On 30th March 1988 I was driving eastwards along the A259 and had stopped at the traffic lights by Hove Lagoon. Something caught my eye and to my utter amazement there in the gutter on the side of the road next to where I had stopped was what I recognised immediately as a male Little Bittern ! Once the traffic lights had changed, I drove on a bit, pulled up on the side of the road (there was less traffic then) and ran back, grabbing the bird before it could fall victim to a passing car. In the absence of anything to put it in, I sat it on the back seat of the car where it quickly adopted an erect alarm-posture. From Hove Lagoon to De
Read more