14th October 2012 - Dungeness

If it weren't so barren and bizarre, I'd rather like to live at Dungeness - fresh fish, cute railway and birds galore!  I'll make do with my day trips down for now though.  We were introducing a friend to birdwatching and decided Dungeness would be the perfect place.  We of course forgot about the biting cold but luckily after the sun came up it was a rather glorious day.

Awesome train!

A brief amount of sea watching (think 5 minutes) produced quite a good little starter of two Turnstone, Gannet and various Gulls.  A walk towards the Observatory also was rather good, with the first Great Spotted Woodpecker we'd ever seen there and a beautiful pair of Black Redstart flitting around.  A walk around the NNR produced little more than 4 Kestrel, but we enjoyed watching the ringing of a Lesser Redpoll, Great Spotted Woodpecker and a very vocal Jay.

Mobile phone digiscoping Turnstone...interesting

We then rocked on down to the RSPB reserve and did our usual slow progress down the driveway  stopping every few moments!  A great view of a Stonechat was missed by our friend but luckily a couple were seen later on the walk.  A few Greenfinch and many Great Black-backed Gull were around.  On the walk around the reserve the usual passerines and ducks were seen as well as a lovely Pintail and lone Black-tailed Godwit.  A flock of Shoveler were interesting to look through, with different stages of plumage.  There were lots of Grey Heron hanging around (seven to be exact!) and the Kestrel influx followed us over.  A lovely warden took us around to see the Great White Egret and a first for the year flew over - eight Stock Dove.  A happy sight later on was a Bearded Tit flitting about the reeds and two gorgeous Raven directly above us.  A late prize was around 300 Golden Plover on the ARC Pit and finally some Tree Sparrows!  

Er and just a quick couple of pictures of the seafood platter and banana and chocolate cake I made the night before.  Nom.