After spending a couple of weeks in Morocco, I came home with a virulent stomach bug caused by food poisoning which absolutely floored me. I lost 10.5 KG in 10 days which left me with no energy. I am now more or less back to normal if a little skinny.
I did manage to get to the beach for the Pomarine Skuas and caught up with most of the Dungeness scarcities with the help of other locals.
As this mornings sea watch was abandoned early due to thick fog, I joined RW in parking at the the ARC walking to the Pines and back then across Boulderwall and Dengemarsh to Hayfield 3 and back to the ARC. To say it was disappointing would be an understating how we felt back at the cars. The telescope Richard carried did not leave his shoulder, between us we barely raised our binoculars. Apart from the ever present noisy Cetti's Warblers there were a few Sedge and Reed Warblers, with some Common Whitethroats and a couple of Lesser Whitethroats but very few, it is as if the birds have not arrived even though its the 9th May, c30 Swallows were hawking over Dengemarsh, the hay fields held a handful of Lapwing and Redshanks whose breeding attempts are probably doomed to failure due to Crow predation, even the Greylag Geese seem to have only 2 or 3 goslings per pair.
After a late breakfast I went back to the ARC to see if I could find the Glossy Ibises but was unable to find them, as far as I know they have not been seen this month.
Common Terns in front of Dennis's Hide
Next I drove down to Dennis's hide where at least 4 Common Terns trying to chivvy the Herring Gulls off of the new purpose built Tern raft. The RSPB has allowed one pair of Herring Gulls to build a nest on this raft, Herring Gulls have already taken over the other rafts and all the islands leaving no where safe for the Terns. If management had gone out to the raft a couple of times as soon as the Herring Gulls showed interest in building, they would have moved on to another raft or island lat least giving the Terns a chance.😢
Thoroughly depressed I wandered round the trail passing the new KOS islands at Makepiece, which already have Herring Gulls nesting on them, also a Coot and Oystercatcher so the Herring Gulls chicks won't go hungry. The only highlight in the hours I spent on the reserve were 3 Hobbys actually catching dragonflies.
Hobby over New Excavations
An hour with Richard in the sea watch hide this afternoon saw just 2 Arctic Skuas of any note.
The superb Short-toed Treecreeper that spent a day in the Garden of Southview, many thanks to Dave and Sheila Bunney for their hospitality.
