Black-tailed Godwits

Dungeness - warm, dry, sunny, light airs - A humid, still morning and everywhere you looked around the point there were fledgling birds: Wheatear, Stonechat, Black Redstart, Meadow Pipit, Linnet, Pied Wagtail, Whitethroat and Skylark were all noted either feeding juvs or flying to and fro between nest sites. The amount of invertebrate prey available must be astonishing on this unspoiled headland, if only there were more places like it elsewhere.

                                Juvenile Black Redstart

  Herring and Lesser Black-backed Gulls had chicks on the flat roofs of Dungeness B, two Ravens flew over calling, while the male Peregrine was tucking into breakfast on its favoured pylon opposite the Obs. A Marbled White butterfly on the wing in the moat was our first of the summer.
  At home the garden moth trap hit 30 species of macros for the first time this year with Light Arches the highlight, a species I rarely record.
  An evening visit to the bird reserve in blustery, cool conditions produced a few Lapwings, Cuckoo, Sand Martins and a Marsh Harrier from Screen hide on ARC, while from Firth hide on Burrowes a group of seven Black-tailed Godwits was the best of the waders, one of which was in breeding plumage. All the usual ducks and terns here too.

                               Black-tailed Godwits from Firth hide