Trip reports

Dungeness - by Frank Clark

Sunday, 29 March 2009

The posties and I set off at 06.30 and we arrived at the car park at Dungeness around 08.00, where we headed straight for "The Patch". Arriving at the shingle bank we set up our scopes and began our watch. The common species of gulls were feeding around the hot water outlets at "The Patch" and around 50-60 gulls were resting on the beach. Geoff - non postie was already there and he pointed out a juvenile Iceland Gull, probably 2nd winter, which was amongst them. This is a handsome gull which is so pale, looking almost white, that it stands out easily in any mixed flock of gulls. Around the same size as a Herring Gull, the shorter, less heavy bill is a key characteristic of this species as are the shorter legs.

In addition, at least 4 Sandwich Terns were flying amongst the gulls feeding at the patch, the first species of Tern for the year. A small number of Gannets, a pair of Common Scoter and a large number of cormorants were all that were present on the sea. Unusually, we did not see any auks, divers or skua's during our sea watching. With the group number now up to 9, we moved down to the scrub area around the observatory and the surrounding shingle banks. This area was also very quite, probably as the main spring migration was still a few weeks away. A number of Wheatear were present amongst the shingle and as we moved around the moat we came across the first of two pairs of Black Redstart. These are one of my favourite birds and I always like to see them.

Our next stop was the Arc Pits, which are found immediately opposite the main Dungeness RSPB reserve. As we approached the car park, the water level in the pits was high and where there used to be two separate lakes, there is now only one. A few years ago you could see a good variety of waders here but as the water level has increased, the wader species have disappeared. From The Hanson Hide the only waders to be seen were several pairs of Oystercatcher and a number of Lapwing. The usual duck species were present, along with a small number of Ruddy Duck and a pair of Slavonian Grebe. Interestingly, one of the grebes was in full summer plumage and the other was in full winter plumage which gave us a chance to compare the two plumages.

By now, it was approaching 12.00 so we proceeded to the car park in the main reserve, where we had a leisurely Lunch in the picnic area before we began our tour of the reserve. I like to visit the Denge Marsh hide first and as we walked around to this hide we again noticed the shortage of warblers and spring migrants. Reaching the Denge Marsh hide, it was slightly disappointing to see that the water level in the marsh was also very high and there were no waders present. Unfortunately, the rest of the hides did not produce anything new either but we did see a good number of the more common resident species.

In general, it was a good day with 64 species seen but only 2 of these species being summer migrants. We left the reserve at 16.00 to make our way home.


Frank Clark