Rye Harbour and Dungeness

 Sunday 11th October 2021

Another walk with Mark and Elizabeth.  We spent the morning at Rye Harbour before relocating to Dungeness for the afternoon session.  The early morning mist soon disappeared and the temperature rose steadily afterwards.  Wendy, a friend of Mark and Elizabeth's from London, joined us for the day.

Rye Harbour NR, Sussex

We walked to the beach from the car park, passing the new Discovery Centre on the way.  Then we headed west to visit the Ternery Hide and Denny's Hide before returning to the car park by the Martello Tower

We saw a good range of birds, nothing surprising, but all were very welcome.  The highlights are itemised below:

• The wallpaper was provided by the numerous Wigeon and Teal on the water.  Most were still in eclipse plumage.
• A huge flock of Golden Plover gave us a lot of pleasure in their flight and on the ground.
• 4+ Pintails gave us some glamour.
• There were still 2 Swallows flying around.
• A Great White Egret showed very well on the Salt Pool
• Wendy spotted a Snipe as we looked over the Ternery Pool from the hide, which was, thankfully, empty.
• Perhaps the highlight of the day was the close views of 2 Skylarks on the footpath near Denny Hide.  They landed on a post just a few metres away from us and were so besotted with each other they didn't notice us.

We saw Kate Humble outside the Discovery Centre, with a film crew, at the start of our visit.

Dungeness

After lunch at the car park in Rye we moved on to Dungeness, calling in at the ARC Pits before moving on to the main reserve where I only had time to visit Denis's Hide before I had to leave.

The highlights here are listed below:

• At least 2 more Great White Egrets were seen.
• 2 Cattle Egrets were showing well by the cattle near Cook's Pond.
• At least 6 cracking Pochard were seen by the ARC Screen Hide
• 20+ Gadwall showed really well.
• We just missed a Pectoral Sandpiper from Dennis's Hide.

It was nice to bump into Plodding Birder (Martin Casemore) at the ARC.  He advised us as to what was present on the reserve and gave us an update on the state of the place - Denge Hide has now reopened,  thankfully.

I had to leave around 3 pm to get back in time to take the dogs out before it got dark.  The rest of the group spent more time on the reserve but didn't see anything different.

Another really good day's birding with friends.