Long-eared Owl and Purple Sandpipers

Dungeness - mild, sunny, w 2 -Another warm day with temperatures rising to 15 C by early afternoon. At the Patch little of note apart from the usual mass of gulls, mainly Black-headed and Great Black-backs, and a couple of small flocks of Common Scoters moving into Rye Bay. Predictably, yesterdays Dotterel had done the off from the beach opposite Jarman`s.

                                Cattle Egret and Ring-necked Duck, Boulderwall

                                Long-eared Owl, Dipping Pool
RSPB - The fine weather and a rash of good birds had brought birders out in force and the car park was packed. Both the Cattle Egret and Ring-necked Duck showed well at Boulderwall where two White-fronts were in a distant Greylag flock in the fields. At the dipping pool a roosting Long-eared Owl draw an appreciative crowd while a 1st winter and an adult Caspian Gull were in front of Firth hide along with the full suite of their commoner congeners. Also on Burrowes amongst numerous wildfowl, grebes and Cormorants, a Goosander, five Goldeneyes, several Great White Egrets and three Blackwits.

                               Purple Sandpipers and Turnstones, Hythe seafront

Hythe - En-route to Folkestone this afternoon we called in at the Stade Street sea defence blocks where at least two Purple Sandpipers were present alongside 10 Turnstones.