18/08/2021

A few bits from the MV this morning

Only my second Cydia amplana this year

8 of these Jersey Tigers in and around the trap this morning

Roesel's bush-cricket was new in the trap for me this morning

I spent most of the day at Copt Point reading Mediterranean Gull rings and managed 87 today.

From the reports I received from local Dungeness birders today the peninsular was very quiet. Richard W did see of note a Balearic Shearwater heading West this morning. The juvenile Little stint was again on Lade beach.

17/08/2021

1 of c25 Willow Warblers seen this morning

With a NW 4 blowing this morning I gave the sea watch a miss, instead I spent a couple of hours wandering around The Desert and Trapping Area. A Greenshank over The Desert was probably the highlight, a Great Spotted Woodpecker looked like it was a new arrival as did 2 Collared Doves that appeared to come in off the sea as I was checking the lighthouse garden, c25 each of Willow Warbler and Common Whitethroat were seen and a couple of Lesser Whitethroats were heard. The only Chats were a new brood of Stonechats and 3 Wheatears.

At The Patch lots of Black-headed and Herring Gulls with singles of Kittiwake and Mediterranean Gull, there no Terns of any description there while I was there.

A look at the western end of Scotney found just 2 Common Sandpipers of any note. 

Osprey over Burrowes this afternoon viewed from the ARC

Mid afternoon at the ARC c200 Sand Martins and 12 Common Swift flew South during a light shower, an Osprey also flew South over Kerton Road and Burrowes where it hovered the once but appeared to move on quickly. On theARC there are now 2 Black-necked Grebes present among the many eclipse Duck, also 2 Great White Egrets there today.

2 poor images of Black-necked Grebes, but they do prove to myself that there is 2 birds on the ARC today

 

16/08/2021

06.00-08.00 from the sea watch hide, thanks to AJG for collating the numbers:

Fulmar: 4W

Gannet: 194W      8E 

Oystercatcher: 3W

Kittiwake: 23W

Sandwich Tern: 67W

Common Tern: 1W

Wheatear: 3 around sea wall

Hornet Hoverfly in the trapping area

A long wander around the Trapping Area and Long Pits looking for migrants was very disappointing, just a few Willow Warblers were seen, along with a few Common Whitethroats and Lesser whitethroats that were probably summer residents, 120+ Sand Martins flew NW with 10 House Martins and 2 Swallows.

Early afternoon on the ARC a moulting adult Black-necked Grebe and 2 Black-tailed Godwits of any note. 

This afternoons sea watch from the fishing boats was also very poor.

14.15-15.00

Gannet: 10W

Cormorant: 4W

Oystercatcher: 4W

Sandwich tern: 15W

Arctic Skua: 1W

Grey Seal : 1

Harbour Porpoise: 3+

                                                                    Arctic Skua
 

12/08/2021

While sea watching this morning, I watched a RIB full of refugees c6 miles off Dungeness making their perilous crossing of the English Channel being dwarfed by the 400,000 ton Pioneering Spirit as it steams down the channel just in front of them. To put the size in context the Ever Given ship that blocked the Suez Canal is only half the size of the Pioneering Spirit.

A very poor sea watch this morning 

08.30-09.30

Gannet: 86W    4E

Cormorant: 4W

Oystercatcher: 1E

Sandwich Tern: 6W

Common Tern: 12W

Grey Seal: 1

Harbour porpoise: 6+

Hummingbird Hawkmoth warming up on the perimeter wall

Pine Hawkmoth, Privet Hawkmoth, Poplar Hawkmoth and a Jersey Tiger all in the Plodland MV this morning

a minimum 186 Mediterranean Gulls with Black-headed Gulls were in the field opposite my house, frustratingly several were colour ringed, but I was unable to read any of them because of the stubble and furrows.

Mediterranean Gull over the garden lunchtime

Border force recovering a migrant RIB off the fishing boats this afternoon

Sand Martin going out to sea at the fishing boats this afternoon

A visit to the ARC this afternoon could find nothing of note, even scoping from the top of the bank I could find nothing notable. Several lapwing came in and settled on the Tern Raft but soon left.

Burrowes was much the same, very disappointing.

 

11/08/2021

Juvenile Kittiwake from the fishing boats yesterday

I joined RW in the sea watch hide this morning, many thanks to him for collating the numbers:

06.30-09.00

Common Scoter: 28W  1E

Great-crested Grebe: 1E

Fulmar: 3W

Balearic Shearwater: 1W

Gannet: 132W      2E

Cormorant: 6W

Grey Plover: 2W

Kittiwake: 49W

Sandwich tern: 11W      1E

Commic Tern: 2W

Swift: 1In

Swallow: 2 out

While we were in the sea watch hide we were joined by a very amiable chap from Southend whom we have never seen before, while chatting and without any prompting from us he said that Dungeness RSPB was a  miserable place, looking neglected and disappointing since his last visit a good number of years ago and that's from a visitor.

A wander around the trapping area with RW and JTM saw/heard 25+ Willow Warblers, Common Whitethroats, Reed Warbler and Sparrowhawk.

A few images from the fishing boats from the last couple of days

Juvenile Kittiwake

Turnstone

Common Terns

Juvenile Mediterranean Gull

The Fabulous Sooty Shearwater

When I arrived at the fishing boats the Sooty Shearwater was cruising up and down c100-400mts off shore, after a while I threw some bread out for the Gulls, the commotion they made attracted the attention of the Sooty Shearwater, which came right into the beach to join the feast, it certainly wasn't fazed by the Gulls. I doubt I'll ever get views like this again from Dungeness beach.

 

The fabulous Sooty Shearwater that spent the best part of 2 days off Dungeness

 

This one gives an idea of how close the Sooty was coming to the beach at times

Sooty Shearwater

A superb Sooty Shearwater flying past the sea watch hide this morning

All day coverage today, many thanks to AJG, RW, CP, JA, DW et al for help with the totals:

06.00-16.30: 

Teal: 3W

Common Scoter: 54W  4E

Fulmar: 1E     4W

Manx Shearwater: 1W

Balearic Shearwater: 3W

Sooty Shearwater: 1W at 08.50 then spent the day till 17.00 at least at The Patch

Gannet: 437W      18E

Cormorant: 17W      9E

Oystercatcher: 2W

Kittiwake: 81W

Mediterranean Gull: 6W

Black-headed Gull: 245W

Yellow-legged Gull: 1 around

Sandwich Tern: 238W

Common Tern: 509W

Arctic Skua: 3E

Swift: 49 out

Sand Martin: 27 out

Grey Seal: 2

Harbour Porpoise: 4+

Sooty Shearwater feeding at The Patch

Plunge Diving

It was brilliant to see it feeding rather than the usual distant view dashing down the channel

A surfing Sooty

Gannets passing the sea watch hide

06/08/2021

Adult Common Tern past the hide this morning

Near gale force SW wind this morning gave hope of an exciting sea watch, but it was not to be with just a trickle of birds through, though the first Black Terns of the autumn were nice.

05.45-11.30 thanks to AJG, JA, JY, CP and PT for  collating the numbers

Common Scoter: 9E      12W

Fulmar: 2E     3W

Balearic Shearwater: 2E      1W

Shearwater: sp: 2E

Gannet: 17E      389W

Cormorant: 12 around

Dunlin: 2W

Knot: 2W

Whimbrel: 1W

Kittiwake: 5E       16W     

Mediterranean Gull: 2W juveniles

Sandwich Tern: c30 around

Little Tern: 7W   flock of 6 and a singleton

Common Tern: c200W

Black Tern: 12W   (11ads + 1Juvenile)

Great Skua: 1E

Arctic Skua: 1W

Swift: 2 out

Juvenile Common Terns past the fishing boats this afternoon

14.00-15.30

Fulmar: 2W

Gannet: 22W

Cormorant: 14E

Kittiwake: 2W

Sandwich tern: 4W

Common Tern: 14W

Swift: 34 out

Swift moving out to sea at the fishing boats this afternoon

A Glossy Ibis flew over Burrowes late morning per PT 

The ARC was carpeted with Sand Martins today and the 2 Garganey are still present among the 100s of eclipse duck there, though they are very difficult to see without any meaningful shelter especially in todays strong winds, as the back of screen hide has now been completely removed making it virtually useless in anything other than mere zephyr of a breeze. Burrowes is just as bad with Makepiece and Firth hide still closed and only Dennis's hide in use, the viewpoints at Firth and Scott are just window dressing providing absolutely zero shelter, any birds that maybe in front of them flush as soon as you are spotted no matter how stealthily you move onto the viewpoints. The ramp from Dengemarsh Hide was removed a couple of weeks ago but no attempt has been made to replace it yet, I'm sure a temporary repair could have been done, after all it only took a couple of hours for the screen hide to barricaded  at that the start of Covid.

The RSPB has a corporate structure and one assumes a health and safety policy, which I'm sure would state that all hides should be checked at least weekly if not daily, if that is the case what happened during the 18 months the hides were all closed due to the pandemic? I'm sure that the problems with the hides did not all occur in the week prior to the 19th July! In fact with all the hides shut it should have been a very straightforward task to keep them all up to scratch. Dungeness was once a flagship reserve but is now a pale shadow of what it once was, little wonder so few people now visit the reserve. 

04/08/2021

A couple of sea watches today enjoying the warm still conditions. 07.00-08.50 & 12.00-15.30

thanks to AJG, RW & JA for collating the numbers. 

Brent Goose: 13W

Shelduck: 5W   9E

Mallard: 30W    single flock of 28 the largest flock I've seen on a sea watch here

Common Scoter: 43W   7E

Fulmar: 3W  2E

Balearic Shearwater: 3W

Grey Heron: 2W

Gannet: 56W    4E

Cormorant: 13W

Oystercatcher: 11W

Whimbrel: 1W    1E

Kittiwake: 4W

Sandwich tern: 132W     6E

Commic tern: 19W

Sand Martin: 336 out to sea

Swallow: 10 out

Grey Seal: 2

Harbour Porpoise: 6

Thresher Shark: seen by JA 

Linnet at Bretts Marina

Very Quiet at Dungeness at the moment, with no wader habitat the highlights were the 2 Garganey still on the ARC today.

Juvenile Yellow Wagtail at Dengemarsh

The fist Jersey Tiger in the trap this year