19/10/2019 East Grinstead RSPB Group Outing to Dungeness

Saturday 19 October 2019
Dungeness
East Grinstead RSPB Local Group

Despite the awful weather, we took a chance and made the long journey to Dungeness.  Thankfully we were able to complete our tour without getting wet and in the process we saw a couple of really rare birds.

• 2 of the 3 cattle egrets were showing as we entered the reserve at Boulderwall.   We called back around lunchtime to enable those who missed out the chance to catch up with these lovely creatures.
• From the Visitor Centre we caught our first sighting of the long staying red-throated diver as it drifted close to us.  A small group of chiffchaffs also caught our attention.

  

  red-throated diver
  courtesy of David Scott and Twitter

• Apart from the usual suspects, tufted ducks, teal, wigeon and a couple of sleepy drake pintails, things were quiet so we moved around the site fairly smartly to allow us more time to visit the ARC Hide and the fishing boats where most of the news was coming from. 
• After lunch we were rewarded with stunning views of the little stint as it moved around the smallest island, only 30-40 metres from the ARC Hanson Hide. 



little stint at ARC pit
courtesy of Martin Jeffree

•  Also present was a single knot and a single black-tailed godwit.  Surprisingly, it was 13.30 before we found our first little egret of the day.  The only great white egret of the day was seen shortly afterwards.
• After a fruitless visit to The Desert to look for ring ouzels, we moved to the fishing boats to twitch the rare sabine's gull that had been reported earlier.  The gull was very obliging, flying so close to us that we didn't even need to use our binoculars. 



sabine's gull
courtesy of Plodding Birder and Twitter

sabine's gull
courtesy of Plodding Birder and Twitter



All 13 members were pleased with the visit and there was a real sense of accomplishment at the end.  Our species list of well over 50 included a year tick for me (sabine's gull) and 2 life ticks (little stint and sabine's gull) for most of the others.

Good old "dunge" - you always deliver, even in the worst weather!