A Day at Dungeness

Last week we postponed our visit to Dungeness, so today, in what promised to be perfect birding weather, we set off  eastwards in some pretty dense traffic. There is a bonus on the longer car journeys when Martin drives, in that I get to bird spot before our destination and Martin concentrates on the road ahead. However, this time on the the roads via Bexhill and Hasting birds were absent but on the marsh approaching Rye, Martin espied a field full of white objects - Geese?  No Martin - sheep or as they will be in known in future - "Woolly Geese".

The birding day augured well, as we parked in the ARC car park at Dungeness a well timed flyby of the day's first Marsh Harrier kicked us into gear.  From the hide we managed to find Red-top Smew, Great White Egret and Goldeneye. Cetti's Warblers and a Water Rail were sounding off in close proximity to the hide but neither showed themselves. With lots of ground to cover we took a stroll round to the viewing screen, where hawk-eyed Martin spotted a Bittern creeping into the reeds. Lots of waterfowl on view including even more female Smew but not a drake to be seen anywhere.

A local birder had tipped us off to two Black-throated Divers present on the New Diggings so, after a short interlude to view the Tree Sparrow flock at Boulderwall, we headed south down the road. Unfortunately no BTD were present but out on the southern end of ARC a Great White Egret posed perfectly. Back to the reserve with another pause to try and obtain a better Tree Sparrow shot.



Today they didn't want to come out from cover

At the Visitor Centre the recent sightings board showed that a Black-necked Grebe was present on Burrowe's, probably viewable from the Dennis Hide. Here we spent some time scrutinising every bird in sight, unfortunately resulting in failure. We moved on to the Firth Hide where a another huge number of wildfowl were scanned for something unusual, then an obliging female Goosander swam unconcerned to a position directly beneath the hide window and was duly recorded. 

 

Undeterred and somewhat buoyed up by the Goosander encounter we paid a visit to the Makepeace Hide where yet again Martin's keen eyesight paid off with distant views of the Black-necked Grebe. By now we were fairly happy and on a roll, where next? I was keen to get back to Scotney to scan for some geese but we agreed for one more go at the BTD, as we passed New Diggings, there in the corner as predicted, were two Black-throated Divers. Unfortunately in my haste to get the camera out I had inadvertently switched to manual mode and proceeded to take a series of blank images of a bird that you don't often get close to. Ah well - perhaps another day and no doubt Martin's shots are pretty good.

All I could salvage from a disaster.

Our visit to Scotney was a bit of an anti-climax, the huge numbers of geese were on the fields beyond the far bank of the pit, too far to view even with the scope. Scanning the roosting Lapwing flock revealed just 8 Golden Plover and precious little else. Our final visit was to the Colonel Body Memorial Lakes at Pett Level where we encountered yet more Marsh Harriers. It is odd that sightings of these birds, along with Glossy Ibis and Great White Egrets fails to give that pulse quickening episode that they used to. Thankfully Martin suggested that we have a quick look over the sea wall, out on the flat calm sea were rafts of Wigeon and Great Crested Grebes, careful study of the birds in between revealed Slavonian Grebe and Black and Red-throated Divers.

Finally on the way home, more passenger seat birding gave JACKDAWS, a bird that Martin refuses to put on his list, and a Buzzard. We ended the day with a total of 56 species and a substantial number of year ticks - another great day at Dunge.