Spotted Flycatcher

Dungeness - 0900hrs - cool, sunny, w 3 - Following a chilly old night things soon warmed up once the sun rose encouraging various common butterflies onto the wing: Common Blue, Red Admiral, Small Copper and two Clouded Yellows in the moat being the highlights. The lighthouse garden and scrub down to the Obs held a few Willow Warblers and a single Black Redstart, but little else besides.
At the Patch c2,000 gulls, mostly Black-headed, Herring and Black-backs, 100 Common Terns, 20 Sandwich Terns, a 2nd summer Med Gull and a juv Yellow-legged Gull. The sea was dead.

                                Black Redstart, Dungeness

ARC - 1600hrs - On the way back from the allotment we called in at ARC where, joy upon joy, at last a Spotted Flycatcher was performing in the car park scrub. Incredibly, apart from one seen in France in June, this was my first of the year locally; a once familiar summer breeder and common passage migrant now elevated to near rarity status. Down towards the pines a few Willow Warblers were noted, plus two Wheatears along the railway line. Didn`t tarry long at Screen due to two of the Swallow chicks being out of the nest and clinging to the hide; one actually fledged whilst we were there, settling on the roof where an adult came in with food.
Waders on the islands were the usual Dunlin, Snipe, Redshank, Blackwit and a Ruff.

                                Swallow juvs, ARC