Biking Birder comes to Dungeness

Dungeness - 0615-0815hrs - SE 4 - We don't often get the fabled south-easterly wind in spring, so I made the effort and joined the hard core in a packed seawatch hide first thing, even though it failed to live up to expectations. However, hundreds of Sandwich Terns, Gannets and Common Scoters did pass up-Channel, many of them very close to shore along with a trickle of Red-throated Divers, Kittiwakes, Common Terns, auks and Fulmars, plus four each of Bonxie, Little Gull and Manx Shearwater, two Avocets, Arctic Skua, five Knots, two Dunlins, two Curlews, four Brents and six Eiders.

                                Sunrise over Dungeness

RSPB - I showed Gary Prescott  (aka the Biking Birder) around the reserve this morning who was down to deliver a talk at the RSPB this evening. We kicked off at Boulderwall for the Tree Sparrows and onto the fields to check for the Crane which was seen around midday. Burrowes was quiet with only a Ruff of any note.
  We then moved back to the seawatch hide for more scoters, Gannets, Sandwich Terns, Red-throated Divers and three Arctic Skuas moving up-Channel. On the way out two Wheatears were noted opposite Jarman`s.
  En-route to Gary`s highly entertaining talk this evening I diverted to Makepeace hide to view the adult Red-necked Grebe that had dropped in earlier.

                                Red-necked Grebe, Burrowes