Lade/Dungeness - warm, dry, sunny, SW 6 - A breezy old day made for difficult birding conditions on the local patch where the first Kingfisher sighting of late summer was the highlight. Several Willow Warblers filtered through cover in the shelter of the ponds while 50 odd Sand Martins hawked insects in the lee of the willow swamp along the causeway to the `mirrors`.
Moving on to Dungeness (and into a near gale force wind) an hour in the seawatching hide with MC and CP et al produced a trickle of Gannets, Kittiwakes, Sandwich and Common Terns making their way up-Channel along with a single distant Balearic Shearwater. On the bird reserve the only surprise was the reappearance of the Glossy Ibis after a three week absence as it flew across Burrowes pit. With Firth and Makepeace hides now seemingly condemned for the foreseeable future, Scott hide dismantled and the two new viewpoints like wind tunnels, the only shelter is now from Dennis`s hide. This means that most of the lake is difficult/impossible to view on a day like today; how on earth has it come to this at what is one of RSPB`s Blue Riband reserves? A Common Sandpiper was the only wader on offer along with a few feeding Common Terns, hundreds of Sand Martins over the lake and a few Swifts, plus the usual Great White Egrets and Marsh Harriers across Dengemarsh, where the hide there is still closed. Over the road on the ARC it was more of the same, although it was good to see several fledged Common Terns on the distant raft. Hanson hide also remains closed though, meaning that everything on the water is miles away and pretty much a dead loss from a birding perspective.
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