Trip reports
Dungeness
Sunday, 25 February 2007
After a short search of the scrubby vegetation that surrounded the car parking area, we made our way out to the shingle beach. Scanning the grey, choppy waters of the English Channel, we could see hundreds of great crested grebes bobbing about, not too far from the shore, seeming to stretch right along the coast to the east of us. Scattered amongst the grebes were a number of red-throated divers, and a few guillemots. We then made our way westward towards "the patch", an area of disturbed sea caused by the nuclear power station pumping out warm coolant water. A large flock of gulls circled around this eruption of bubbling water, swooping down and picking up detritus that was being forced to the surface. Other gulls sat on the sea around the edge of this maelstrom, waiting, resting and preening. More gulls were gathered on the beach doing the same, mingling with about fifty cormorants in their usual upright stance, many with white patches on their thighs, and some with almost white heads, a plumage change that appears during the breeding season. Further to the west, a dark grey mass of cloud was ominously building and drifting our way - it was time to head back to the cars.
We arrived at the RSPB reserve at the same time as the rain, so decided to have an early lunch and hope that the rain would cease in time for us to walk the usual circuit, which luckily it did. This was another piece of good fortune because, as we sat eating our lunch in the shelter of the car, the picnic tables we would have sat around were suddenly surrounded by a herd of straggly-looking goats. They gathered together facing the cars, then just stood in the rain and watched us eat. Luckily they gave up after a while, as did the rain, and we were able to go to the first hide to continue with our birdwatching.
With a good amount of winter rain, the lakes had plenty of fresh water for the wildfowl to exploit. Visiting the majority of the hides on our walk round the reserve, our tally of duck species grew, with those of note being male and female smew, good close views of male and female goldeneye, pintail and even a couple of ruddy ducks. The last hide looks out across a lake and on to Denge Marsh. On our autumn visit these waters were low, allowing the protruding sand bars to become more extensive, where we were able to identify a number of waders feeding round the edges, but today, because of weeks of much-needed rain, there were no signs of the bars or the waders. A snipe and redshank were seen in flight later as we sat watching the ducks and geese patrolling the turbulent waters, and we were lucky to spot a white-fronted goose amongst a few greylags as they swam about, asserting their presence. A female marsh harrier quartered the reedbed on the far bank but when it landed in the reeds a couple of crows took exception to its being there and kept mobbing the bird until it flew further on. Once again, the small bird numbers were down, although a couple of pairs of stonechats perched nicely, as they often do, for us to admire.
Back to the cars for refreshments, it was now mid-afternoon and the heavy clouds were beginning to look threatening again. It was agreed that before setting off for home we would have a look at the former ARC pits, now part of the RSPB reserve, across the road from the main reserve entrance. Sitting in the first new hide and scanning the ever-darkening waters, we saw a bird of prey land on a very distant fencepost. The light was poor as it was now raining heavily, but we kept an eye on the bird, which we thought could be a kestrel, but it didn't look quite right. As the rain stopped, the bird dropped from its post and flew low over the shingle bank and across the lake, putting up birds as it went, heading straight towards us and over the hide. Everyone agreed that we had been fortunate to see a merlin. With a distant view of a slavonian grebe fishing on the far side of the lake, it was time to call it a day - one that I think everybody had enjoyed. As we got into the cars, a few birds were seen sitting on cables close to the farmhouse so, on our way out, there was a quick dash across the road just to confirm that we had been looking at a small flock of corn buntings. That will do nicely - let's go home. A souvenir of our visit was the drift of sand all over the car floors - recent improvements to the access track had involved spreading a layer of sharp sand which had stuck to our boots in industrial quantities during the wet weather!