Thursday 13th - Friday 14th January: Dungeness

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 A couple of days around the Dungeness and Romney Marsh area was slower birding than yesterday, but we still managed to locate a few decent birds. We started at the beach area, but a sea watch was disappointing with birds at a great distance and only regular gulls evident at ‘The Patch’, the nuclear plant outfall pipe which attracts an abundance of wildlife. Some compensation was a female Black Redstart, our first of the year. Next we headed to the RSPB reserve. This was somewhat disappointing, with a number of hides closed and some replaced with open viewing platforms, which would appear to be unlikely to facilitate close views of any birds! In particular we mourned the closure for repair of the ARC hide, from where many of our best birds have been seen over the years - five bitterns on one memorable sunny morning, and at the opposite end of the day, flocks of incoming Bewick’s calling atmospherically as they fly in to roost.

Our highlight birds here were Goldeneye and Glossy Ibis, as well as the now regular Great Egrets and a group of Cattle Egret in a nearby field.

Goldeneye

Glossy Ibis

On our final day we drove around Romney Marsh before heading home to Sussex. We found good numbers of Fieldfares on the fields but no Redwing. The highlights of the day however were small groups of Bewicks Swan and Whooper Swans.


Bewick’s Swan


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