Dungeness 22.01.12

A full day of birding with local birder Graeme plus Therese and Stuart from Berdmonsey. Weather was kind although blowing a gale as we approached the sea watch hide at 7.45a.m. Reasonable movement offshore, with auks, gannets and gulls although nothing of quality. Off to The Patch to check gulls but just the regular lesser, great black backed, herring and black headed. A search for possible glaucous, little, med and caspian proved fruitless
A visit to the fishing boats gave us the first winter caspian gull along with great views of guillemots close to the shore and several kittiwakes. From here we headed to the RSPB reserve. Coffee and the hides; plenty of wildfowl: wigeon, teal, shoveler etc but a highlight bird was a flyby merlin as we exited the Firth Hide. Onwards we picked up Marsh Harrier, stonechat, plenty of robins and the great white egret at Denge Marsh Hide. Good views that Grame missed as he had stayed behind to photo the male stonechat. A wander further round didn't realise much more than dunnock and wren although a suspected bearded reedling was seen shooting into a reed bed, plus our first mallards. A few oystercatchers and shelduck and little egret were added before we headed over to the ARC pit, picking up another great egret and tree sparrow. Long tailed duck, pintail, bittern, grey heron and another diistant merlin were recorded before we dropped Graeme off to get snaps of the caspian whilst us three visited The Pilot for a fish and chip lunch.
Reconnecting with GJS we then went to Scotney Pits for barnacle geese, golden plover, dunlin and numerous lapwings. A group of 4 strange geese had us thinking blue phase snow goose, but turned out they were hybrid efforts, probably barnacle x greylag. From here we paid a flying visit to Rye Harbour where mistle thrush, turnstone, common gull, curlew and redshank were added.
In all a super day out and trust Stuart and Therese found it fun.
Species list:
red throated diver; great crested grebe; gannet; cormorant; bittern; little egret; great white egret; grey heron; mute swan; greylag goose (10 sp); canada goose; barnacle goose; brent goose; shelduck; mallard; gadwall; pintail; shoveler; wigeon; teal;( 20 sp) pochard; tufted duck; long tailed duck; goldeneye; marsh harrier; common buzzard; kestrel (en route): merlin; moorhen; coot;( 30 sp) oystercatcher; golden plover; lapwing; turnstone; dunlin; redshank; curlew; snipe; black headed gull; common gull; herring gull;(40) caspian gull; lesser black backed gull; greater black backed gull; kittiwake; guillemot; razorbill; wood pigeon; collared dove; pied wagtail; wren; (50) dunnock; robin; stonechat; mistle thrush; blackbird; great tit; blue tit; long tailed tit; magpie; jackdaw (60); rook; carrion crow; starling; house sparrow; tree sparrow; chaffinch; (66 species)
Be back at Dungeness on Wednesday 28th March: should be a big change in the bird life by then
Photos to follow