04/11/2015 Caspian Gull at Dungeness

Wednesday 4th November 2015
Dungeness, Kent
with Paul and Alastair

At the end of my shift yesterday with Weir Wood Reservoir Conservation Group, Alastair told me about a Pied Wheatear that had been reported near Felixstowe in Suffolk and we agreed to go and twitch it today.  In the meantime Paul expressed an interest so we agreed to travel together with an early 08.00 start. 

By the time we had negotiated our way through Tunbridge Wells news came through that the bird could not be found so we resorted to plan B and travelled to Dungeness with our target bird a Caspian Gull that had been seen there earlier in the day.

• We couldn't find the reported juvenile bird with a red (Polish) ring on the beach but Paul managed to spot an adult male Caspian Gull among a mixed group of gulls from Makepeace Hide on the nature reserve mid-afternoon.



Adult Caspian Gull
Library picture

It's nigh on impossible to have a bad day at Dungeness and today was no different with winter wildfowl arriving early.  Some of the highlights are given below:-

• A couple of "redhead" Smews, my first of the autumn/winter were seen from Scott Hide.  These birds have arrived early!
• Also from Scott Hide, a couple of female Goldeneye were seen.
• My favourite was a female Ruddy Duck - most of my previous sightings have been of the male variety.
• a lovely female Goosander was a welcome sight.  These birds are quite rare in our neck of the woods.
• A couple of Black Redstarts were seen.
• At least 2 Great White Egrets appeared during our brief visit.
• There were at least 3 Yellow-legged Gulls on the water, viewed from Makepeace Hide.
• A smashing male Pintail flew by then landed on the water to provide us with additional beauty.
• The usual suspects were there,of course, Little Grebe, Great-crested Grebe, Pochard, Tufted Duck, Wigeon, Teal, Gadwall, Mallard, Mute Swan and Marsh Harrier.
• I managed to miss a Kingfisher on 3 occasions.
• On the sea we saw a couple of Guillemots and several Kittiwakes.

Considering the lack of activity across the country today, we did very well!












Additions to BUBO UK 2015 List of Birds:
Caspian Gull    (270)

270 equals my total for the whole of last year, which I thought would be unrepeatable!