Dungeness - cold, cloudy, SW4 - Spent the morning on the coast with drizzle coming and going and a blustery wind courtesy of named Storm Dave which is due to barrel across northern Britain this weekend. Trudging around the Dungeness peninsula was suitably uninspiring with a lone Willow Warbler singing from Long Pits the only hint of summer, along with several Chiffchaffs, Linnets, Skylarks and Meadow Pipits. An hour at the seawatch hide produced a trickle of Gannets, Sandwich Terns, Common Scoters and Red-throated Divers, plus a distant Arctic Skua, a Mediterranean Gull and seven Brent Geese heading up-Channel.
We then checked out Lade where the Black-necked Grebe and two Goldeneyes remained on south lake along with a small number of wildfowl sheltering from the wind at the southern end. Likewise, at Kerton quarry the ducks and waders were in the lee of the main island keeping low. However, the windswept wetlands at Boulderwall attracted our first two Little Ringed Plovers of spring in company with a Ringed Plover and two Dunlins; a Great White Egret, two Wigeons. five Teals and two Shelducks also noted here. A quick scan from Hanson hide delivered the usual Shovelers and Great Crested Grebes but little else.
