RSPB Dungeness : 26th June 2015

RSPB Dungeness : 26th June 2015

On the morning of the 26th we stopped at Dereck Jarman’s garden first before heading off for RSPB Dungeness which I had never been to before but was curious to see. We started by dropping into the visitor centre where we immediately got a good year tick when one of the staff pointed out a Common Gull sitting on a nest on a raft just in front of the reception ; there was also a pair of nesting Oystercatchers on the same raft. In fact Common Gulls at this site were extremely common and were one of the many goodsightings we had.

We made a circuit of the hides going clockwise around the main track taking in the Dennis, Firth, Makepeace, Scott, Christmas Dell and Deng Marsh hides. As we went round we got very good views of a number of Hobbies hunting over the various scrapes and pools. On the various bodies of water were Shelduck, Pochard and Tufted Ducks as well as Great Crested Grebes and Cormorants. In the wader department there were Redshanks and a Little Ringed Plover. There were also Reed and Sedge Warblers, Reed Bunties, Pied Wagtail, Swifts, House Martins and Swallows, Greenfinch, Linnet and Starlings. We also got a couple of Marsh Harriers and some Common Terns.

When we had made the circuit, we drove down to the main road again and over that into the extension of the reserve where the Hanson ARC hide is. We took the Willow Trail down there to the hide at the end hoping to be able to see the Cuckoo we could hear calling. As it happened, by the time we got to the hide it seemed to have moved even further away. We walked back down the track and off down the other path to the are where there is a blind. As we approached the blind a bird flew straight at us and over our heads. A quick look inside showed a couple of Swallows nests. It wasn’t possible to see inside the nest but the bird kept coming back in with food while we were there; they must have been very small nestlings because, although the nest was only about seven feet off the ground, nothing protruded out of it.

We sat there for a while getting nice views of Linnets drinking at a small pool just in front of the hide and, as we left, we got a quick view of a Green Woodpecker on a telegraph pole – the first of the year that we had actually seen though we had heard one a month ago.

It had been a splendid few hours with great weather and a good variety of birds. The best was the wonderful close views of Hobbies but the mass of Common Gulls was also good and a pair of Marsh Harriers is never to be sniffed at. Mainly though it was the good range of birds we saw even though it was quite late in the season. As with many of the sites we have been to on this holiday it could have been a lot better had we been there a bit earlier in the year; there’s only one spring a year unfortunately !

Bird Sightings : RSPB Dungeness