Saturday 17 July 2010

I couldnt resist it!

Getting up earlyish this morning I decided to head south to Dungeness, for the past week I have been seeing reports of the White Tailed Plover and not being able to go due to work etc. Finally I was on my way, I left in bright sunshine and 5 mins after I got in the car the pager confirmed it was still present...great!
I watched the bird at mid range for about 45 mins with good scope views but light was a bit dodgy at times, thanks to the summer storm clouds viewing was much improved, until the rain distorted the view that is!
I also bumped into Ray Roche and his family, who I know from Norfolk which was good, I followed them to Denge Marsh as I did not know the way, which was very useful. The very second we stopped the cars the Purple Heron got up out of the reedbed and gave a fairly good but short flight view. Easily enough to confirm id even if the bins were steamed up and viewed through the car window, they are so different to Grey Herons in flight with there snake like neck, it makes me wonder why I check all the greys! After getting out of the car and setting up the scope the Great White Egret decided to put on a brief show with 3 short sightings just to finish my visit nicely.

So not a bad mornings birding at all, its not every day you get White Tailed Plover followed by Purple Heron and Great White Egret, with side orders of Gargany!
My first UK bird tick this year which takes me up to 398 species now, can I make the 400 by the end of the year?!

Very poor shots of the plover and egret below, not really worth the megabites they take up.

3 comments:

  1. Nah............,that bottom pic is of a sparra!!!! :)
    Congrats on getting the 'Holy Trinity' at Dunge at the moment!

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  2. yes it could be anything I admit, it was taken hand held without scope at a range of 100m+ though! Cracking bird, well worth a visit if you have not been to see it yet.

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