Brian's birding blog: Morning at Dungeness with Jim

Sunday, 25 August 2024

Morning at Dungeness with Jim

I woke early today and set off for Dungeness with Jim arriving at the sea watch hide about 6.45am. None of the locals had thought the weather good enough to produce much so hadn't turned up but it was the only day I had free for the visit so we set up and tried to milk the seawatch for what we could. Lot's of Gannet and Sandwich Tern were constants and a couple of Porpoise entertained us for a while. A couple of young Kittiwakes flew west before we picked out a very distant Arctic Skua for our first year tick of the trip. (Others reported Bonxie and later a Goshawk which is a most unexpected bird for the point although the birder that reported it seemed to know the species well. A flock of White Storks circled overhead whilst we were back in the car so we missed them.)

Next we scanned the patch gulls and found a single juvenile Yellow-legged Gull among the throng which contained mostly Herring and Black-headed gulls with the odd Lesser Black-backed.. A Raven sat on the top of the power station at one end and a Peregrine at the other. A male Sparrowhawk flew through the power station and must have caught something as it spent quite some time out of sight on the floor behind the fence line. Two Wheatear and a Whinchat were spotted on the wall along with several Meadow Pipits before a large flock of Sand Martins numbering over 100 flew in and over the power station.

Scotney Sandpits

At Boulderwell we found five Cattle Egrets before making our way down the road to Scotney to park opposite Jury's Gap and the walk out to the sandpit area which we'd surprisingly never visited before. The Pectoral Sandpiper was our target here but proved very hard to find and took almost two hours before we had great scope views following a Marsh Harrier flushing everything. Jim found an adult Little Stint for my third year tick of the day. Two Wood Sandpipers, nine Green Sandpipers and three Common Sandpipers added to the list along with twenty or more Ringed Plover, two Ruff, five Dunlin, Two Greenshank, a Redshank several Avocet and Blackwits. A Peregrine landed to bath in the puddles and dry out on the sandy bank and both Sparrowhawk and Hobby came through too to make for a very enjoyable session before the rain came and had us running for the car.

Back at Hanson hide overlooking ARC pit we found a single Glossy Ibis and Great Egret before picking out a juvenile Black Tern along with several adult and juvenile Common Terns. At least seven Garganey were found among the other ducks present which included Teal, Pochard, Shoveler, Tufted, Gadwall and Mallard. Waders were represented by Ringed Plovers, a juvenile Little ringed Plover, Oystercatchers, a Common Sandpiper and Lapwing.