May lockdown summary

Lade - warm, dry and sunny, ne 4 - Following the lunacy of the weekend when the beaches were packed out with visitors and the coast road reduced to a single lane due to parked vehicles (mostly kite-surfers), today things returned to some sort of normality.
  Around the local patch a few more ducks such as Gadwall and Pochard were noted on south lake while Dabchick and Coot juvs were out on the water. Also confirmed Oystercatcher breeding this morning with the sighting of a well-grown chick on one of the islands, while two Redshanks and five Mediterranean Gulls flew over calling. Butterfly numbers have been in short supply so far this spring, but along the main track I did notice a few Small Coppers, Small Heaths and Common Blues.

                                Small Copper

  Last month was one of the driest on record down here with only 13mm of rain recorded at Littlestone by OL; no wonder the shingle ridges look burnt to a crisp. Due to the lockdown restrictions certain birds that may have tempted travelling birders went unreported until after the event. Most were typical May overshooting migrants from the south and all moved quickly through the Dungeness peninsula, including: Purple Heron, Glossy Ibis, Spoonbill, Cattle Egret, Honey Buzzard, Black Kite, Montagu`s and Hen Harriers, Whiskered Tern, Pectoral and Curlew Sandpipers, Little Stint, Bee-eater and Serin.