Dengemarsh Gully - cold, cloudy, showers, NE 4 - With a scudding wind coming off the North Sea delivering a rash of short, sharp, showers weather conditions were far from ideal for our morning Ted walk; not that he was particularly bothered, originating as he does from the Carpathian mountains of Romania where winters can be brutal. The gully is one of those sites that looks good for a rarity or two and to be fair it has got form even in my time: Pallas`s, Melodious and Yellow-browed Warblers, Red-flanked Bluetail, Bluethroats and Wryneck, to name but a few. However, most of the time it`s as dull as ditch water and initially today was no different: a ticking Robin, two singing Cetti`s Warblers and three flyover Goldfinches was about it; still, the best stuff is almost always at the bottom of the gully... We crossed the sewer by the dam and wandered up the slope where Ted disturbed a passerine from the edge of the gorse scrub. I called him in and put him on the lead and then noticed that the bird was perched on the ruins of Myrtle Cottage about 20 yards away, so after a quick look through the bins, thinking it looked interesting, fired off a few shots with the bridge camera. It was a very erect and sandy-brown looking wheatear giving a first impression of perhaps a Greenland type, although the tail appeared to be quite black as it flew out over Penn Bars.
Back at the car, and out of the wind and rain, I had a good look at the pics and the first thing I noticed was a broad white eye-brow, mostly in front of the bill and dark lores, plus a prominent alula contrasting with the pale-fringed wing coverts denoting a 1st autumn bird. The tail appeared to be shorter and certainly blacker than Northern Wheatear - so it had to be an Isabelline Wheatear! Having not seen one for a while (Scilly in the 90`s) I contacted Owen for a second opinion who met me on site and confirmed the identification from my pics, as did Jacob via WhatsApp (thanks to you both). Thankfully the bird remained in the same area around Myrtle Cottage and out on Penn Bars throughout the afternoon enabling a number of local birders to connect with this rarity from the steppes of central Asia - and apparently it is the first record of Isabelline Wheatear for the Dungeness area.
