May Bank Holiday Monday was an exciting day, but an exhausting one as we were up at 5am and not back until 8.30pm. Another trip to Dungeness was on the cards so we headed down through Kent wondering what we’d see.
A quick trip to the beach proved fruitless, so we wandered back up towards the Bird Observatory. On the way, I spotted a bird that looked familiar but I couldn’t place it – it turned out to be a Black Redstart, the only one I had seen previously was through the haze quite far away so to be so close was wonderful. These were quickly followed by a magnificent Wheatear and another Wheatear further up, then a low flying Sparrowhawk. Buoyed by our success so far, we felt slightly let down by the rest of the loop round – a Reed Warbler and a mischievous Great Tit were the highlights. Having said that, the bushes were crawling with Whitethroat which was lovely – they’re a very sweet little bird. After admitting defeat, on the way back to the car we saw a Chiffchaff, Pied Wagtail and 3 Wheatear. We drove round to the RSPB reserve and went from hide to hide without realising quite how powerful the Sun was – I’m pretty red today! We ummed and ahhed about a wader before Stuart clocked onto it bobbing its behind – a Common Sandpiper, the first of the year for us. There were around 20 Common Tern which made me happy as I love terns and Greylag goslings swimming in a row added to the happiness. Stuart led us down a dead end path to try to find flycatchers, but none were to be found. However we got a much better prize – a Garganey and then a swooping falcon overhead. We stood and watched it for at least 15 minutes – we knew we’d not seen it before but could we dare hope it was the falcon we had wanted to see for a long time? Suddenly a shout erupted from beside me, ‘He’s got red trousers, look at his red trousers!’
It was indeed a Hobby and as we walked to the Denge Marsh hide, we amazingly saw 6 more. We popped across to the ARC before we headed to Rye Harbour and had a brief chat with a lovely man (unfortunately I forgot to ask his name), who let us know that he’d just had a report on his pager for a bird down at the power station. It was a Crested Lark and although we didn’t realise this at the time, they are an extremely rare visitor to theUK (as far as I’m aware, 23 recorded sightings) as they are both non-migratory and grumpy about flying over water. This one must have gotten extremely lost! We stood for ages with a lovely group of twitchers on the inland side of the Power Station where the bird had last been seen an hour before. Unfortunately it wasn’t showing itself, so we got ready to leave. Just then however, a man in the group got a phone call about the bird and gathered us all up and led us to the beach front of the power station – actually a quite long walk as the boundary has to be followed all the way around. There we were faced with more glum faces as it had disappeared again. However, 3 minutes later a guy to our left sighted him and we spent a great time watching our first successful twitch! It was a beautiful bird, the crest was lovely and thank you to the Wheatear that chased it into the open so we could all get a good view! We weren’t finished there though; a trip to Rye Harbour was calling as the day was so lovely. This upped our wader count with such birds as Avocet, Grey Plover and Golden Plover, as well as what felt like the world’s largest Ringed Plover community. There were bunnies galore and on the way out, a lone Whimbrel.
My year list for 2012 comes to 148.
Such an awesome caterpillar. |
These are pretty cool too. |
It was indeed a Hobby and as we walked to the Denge Marsh hide, we amazingly saw 6 more. We popped across to the ARC before we headed to Rye Harbour and had a brief chat with a lovely man (unfortunately I forgot to ask his name), who let us know that he’d just had a report on his pager for a bird down at the power station. It was a Crested Lark and although we didn’t realise this at the time, they are an extremely rare visitor to the
Dungeness NNR
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Dungeness RSPB
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Rye Harbour
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1
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Swift
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Oystercatcher
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Oystercatcher
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2
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Magpie
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Common Sandpiper
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Pied Wagtail
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3
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Swallow
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Ringed Plover
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Wheatear
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4
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Mute Swan
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Common Tern
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Lapwing
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5
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Whitethroat
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Coot
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Golden Plover
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6
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Greylag Goose
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Mallard
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Grey Plover
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7
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Linnet
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Cormorant
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Black-headed Gull
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8
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Great Crested Grebe
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Mute Swan
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Dunlin
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9
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Carrion Crow
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Shelduck
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Redshank
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10
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Rook
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Tufted Duck
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Avocet
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11
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Herring Gull
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Canada Goose
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Ringed Plover
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12
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Collared Dove
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Garganey
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Bar-tailed Godwit
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13
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House Sparrow
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Reed Bunting
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Shelduck
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14
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Starling
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Hobby – NEW FOR LIFE LIST
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Meadow Pipit
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15
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Black Redstart
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Redshank
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Linnet
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16
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Wheatear
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Bar-tailed Godwit
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Sanderling
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17
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Sparrowhawk
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Marsh Harrier
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Turnstone
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18
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Reed Warbler
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Buzzard
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Lesser Black-backed Gull
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19
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Chiffchaff
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Dunnock
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Whimbrel
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20
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Blackbird
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Tree Sparrow
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House Sparrow
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21
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Pied Wagtail
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Herring Gull
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22
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Crested Lark – NEW FOR LIFE LIST!
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Carrion Crow
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My year list for 2012 comes to 148.
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