Dungeness (10 September)

What a good day we had. Six pretty intensive hours of bird watching but well worth the effort. Our first stop was Dungeness Point, next to the nuclear power station, where we had arranged to meet Owen Leyshon, warden for Romney Marsh of which the Dungeness National Nature Reserve is part. He kindly gave us a quick run down on what was around in the area. The winds had changed and the sky had been clear overnight so there had been “a clear out of migrants” i.e., they had crossed the Channel. This saved us time in unnecessarily hunting for wheatear etc. Instead, we found a pair of black redstarts exactly where he said to look, behind the half-mast flag, on the fence towards the Observatory. Flocks of house sparrows and starlings were feasting on the blackberry thickets. We did a quick sea watch from The Point but things were very quiet, just a few gannets and sandwich terns plus gulls on the hot water discharge from the power station (The Patch) and a couple of seals. Owen had highly recommended the Arc Pits and Denge Marsh so we didn’t hang around for long, just long enough to watch a couple of peregrines hunting high over the power station and pylons which lead away from it.

Next stop the Arc Pits and we weren’t disappointed! Water levels had dropped revealing many islands which were covered in birds. Highlights were 3 black terns flying around and even landing nearby giving fantastic views, an iridescent glossy ibis, a male garganey in eclipse, common sandpiper, green sandpiper, a great white egret, juvenile little ringed plovers (eventually correctly identified by their yellow eye rings) and ducks newly arrived for the winter, including a couple of pintail (good views of its back end as it upended), wigeon and teal. At one point a peregrine flew in and put the birds up and we also saw a pair of marsh harriers. We had our lunch in the Hanson Arc Hide and could have stayed longer but knew that further delights were to be found on the main reserve. We didn’t get far however before we spotted 6 more glossy ibis in a pool beside the track.

Eventually we made it to the visitor centre but decided that instead of hanging around there and doing the hides overlooking Burrowe’s Pit most of us would go straight to the Springfield Bridge viewpoint over Denge Marsh. This was unfortunately as far away from the car park as it was possible to go but we did pass some clouded yellow butterflies on route. Our brisk walk was rewarded because again, the low water levels had exposed many islands and spits. A pair of wood sandpipers and a Temmink’s stint occupied one of them. A couple of curlew sandpipers, green sandpipers and ruff were found on others. Bird books and apps were consulted to determine the finer identification points of these birds including that green sandpipers have wide black bars on their tails and wood sandpipers have narrow black bars! Two vivid male yellow wagtails joined the waders briefly. Then this became a three-egret day as 8 cattle egrets flew down onto a sand bar to join the 5 great whites and little egrets which were already on Denge Marsh. Reed warblers zipped in out of the reeds and bearded tits were heard but not seen. A move into the Denge Marsh hide gave a different view of this spectacle but no new species although other members of the group saw sedge warblers from the hide earlier on and a lesser whitethroat nearby.

Time was now pressing on so we headed back, quickly doing the hides and viewing platforms that we’d marched past earlier. We wanted dunlin for our day list and Firth viewing platform obliged with a dozen or so feeding amongst ringed plovers. Our last target bird was redshank. All those exciting birds and no redshank! We were right back in the Dennis hide in the car park before a couple of these were spotted in the distance. By now it was 4:45 and time to gather up our group and drive back down the mile long entrance track. Just by the gate we stopped where we’d seen the glossy ibis earlier and found 6 cattle egrets, unsurprisingly amongst the cows. Last birds for the list as we drove away were rooks and jackdaws. It was a long day but a productive one. Thanks to Huw for driving us around all day.

Bird Species 79: Bearded Tit (h), Black Redstart, Black Tern, Black-headed Gull, Black-tailed Godwit, Blue Tit, Canada Goose, Carrion Crow, Cattle Egret, Cetti’s Warbler (h), Chaffinch, Common Gull, Common Sandpiper, Coot, Cormorant, Curlew Sandpiper, Dunlin, Egyptian Goose, Feral Pigeon, Gadwall, Gannet, Garganey, Glossy Ibis, Golden Plover, Great Black-backed Gull, Great Crested Grebe, Great Tit, Great White Egret, Green Sandpiper, Grey Heron, Greylag Goose, Herring Gull, Hobby, House Sparrow, Jackdaw, Kestrel, Lapwing, Lesser Black-backed Gull, Lesser Whitethroat, Linnet, Little Egret, Little Grebe, Little Ringed Plover, Long Tailed Tit, Magpie, Mallard, Marsh Harrier, Meadow Pipit, Moorhen, Mute Swan, Peregrine, Pied Wagtail, Pintail, Pochard, Robin, Redshank, Reed Bunting, Reed Warbler, Ringed Plover, Rook, Ruff, Sandwich Tern, Sedge Warbler, Shoveler, Snipe, Sparrowhawk, Starling, Stock Dove, Stonechat, Swallow, Teal, Temminck’s Stint, Tufted Duck, Whitethroat, Wigeon, Wood Sandpiper, Woodpigeon, Wren, Yellow Wagtail.
Clouded Yellow, Red Admiral, stoat family (Huw), baby frogs jumping into a puddle, slow worm (Ray)

by Rebecca Dunne