Glaucous Gull, Dungeness

New Diggings/ARC - 0900hrs - From the causeway road (where I was asked to move on by the Police) the two Black-throated Divers and a Smew were on ND. Over the road the first two `white nuns` of the winter were alongside six redhead Smew and seen again later from Hanson hide.

                                Black-throated Diver, New Diggings

                                Smews, ARC

Scotney - 0930hrs - cold, showery, sw 3 - Had a walk through the farmyard and out onto the Marsh this morning looking for, among other things, Corn Buntings, of which we found two within a flock of ten Reed Buntings; it was good to hear from BH, who`d been surveying, that five singers were  heard earlier when the sun was shining. The expanse of gravel pit lakes surprised me and around the margins were hundreds of Lapwings, Wigeon and feral geese, plus eight Little and two Great White Egrets, 20 Shelducks, two Green Sandpipers and a flyover flock of 58 White-fronted Geese.
On the pits I could find no sign of the reported Brent Geese, but there were all the usual wildfowl, gulls and plovers, plus the wintering Long-tailed Duck at the farm end.
Dungeness - 1400hrs - The planned seawatch this afternoon was duly scuppered as DW had located an adult Glaucous Gull within a mixed flock of large gulls near the entrance to the concrete road. Unfortunately it was not visible when I arrived, being tucked away in a fold in the shingle, but eventually the flock took to the skies and we all had brief flight views of the white-winged gull as it carried on heading west over towards the power station and out of sight.
On the sea hundreds of auks and Black-headed Gulls, plus lesser numbers of Kittiwakes and Red-throated Divers.
NB: A Hummingbird Hawk-moth was found in the garden at the Kerton Road Café this afternoon, and taken into care...