Dungeness - New Years Eve

A stormy morning comes good



Myself and Paul ventured out leaving home at 5.40am and heading down to Dungy, the weather on the way down was constant rain and not looking too good. Arriving at Scotney Gravel Pits first of all we disembarked and were hammered by a very strong SSW wind, somewhere in between a 7 or 9.With the accompanying drizzle it made for watering eyes, a red face and distorted facial features straight away, on the plus side my lack of height and low centre of gravity kept me upright.

Like us many of the birds were trying to seek shelter, Wigeon were present in large numbers along with around 6 Greylag Geese, the highlights were 3 Goldeneye just about visible amongst the whitecaps.

From here we made for the Arc Pits and the sanctuary of the Hansen Hide, by now the rain was steady and getting heavy, the wind relentless, we picked up a sideways flying Marsh Harrier en route and then scanned the Pits from the Hide. Another 7 Goldeneye and a Drake Goosander were seen amongst the many wildfowl, many hugging the bank to keep out of the wind and we also picked up 3 Dark Bellied Brent Geese. Additional birds of note were 2 calling Water Rail but unfortunately no sign of a Bittern, can’t say I blame it given the weather.

After a while the rain stopped and we headed for the Causeway Road, we had both been hoping to see a Great White Egret, did we get lucky. We managed to see an unbelievable 5 birds, 2 on Arc and 3 on the New Diggings, it was quite a sight and one that we won’t forget for a long time, the strong wind it seemed was moving them around quite a bit. In addition to these 5 crackers, up against Little Egret you realise just how big they are, Paul found 3 Redhead Smew so things were really picking up.

Great White and Little Egrets

Great White Egret

We moved on to the Sea, now very optimistic and if we thought the wind was bad at the Arc Pits, arriving at the foreshore showed it to be even stronger, this time it appeared more southerly. Gulls were present in their 100’s and were feeding all along the shoreline in massive flocks presumably on food blown in by the Gale. This also gave us the chance to fire off a few shots, Kittiwakes were trying to take your head off and Gannets were passing as close as I have ever seen them. In the end over a 90 minute period we both fired off around 500 apiece, camera shake from the wind and dark skies was a challenge but at least it wasn’t raining anymore.

Enormous flock of Gulls feeding in the storm

In this period of time I recorded very roughly what went past, around 60 Gannets, 10 Guillemots, Paul had a Razorbill, 60 Kittiwake, 5 Fulmars, 6 Red Throated Divers and a female Peregrine in off, I suspect hunting for Auks.

Paul also picked out 2 Caspian Gulls, both 1st winters.

Time was marching on so we headed after this to Walland Marsh, here we saw 37 Bewick’s Swans, rather distant but a good end to a stormy morning.

Happy New Year to all and good birding for 2014 - Dave

Grey Seals

Over the weekend I popped into Barking Outfall in the hope of a goodie after the recent high winds, it does produce more wildfowl in the colder snaps but I was optimistic as usual, the tide was also up.

It was whilst I was leaning over the side searching the wildfowl that I saw a Seals head pop up pretty close in, furthermore it was a Grey Seal, the last one if I remember correctly was a Common Seal that hauled itself out on the mud a good few years back. Quite surprised to see one this far up, especially a Grey, they have been getting up to 6 at Rainham but these have all been mostly Commons.

Still taking in air as it drops below the surface

As I watched it was quite obvious it was after the Thick Lipped Mullet, there were fish jumping out here and there escaping followed by a large bow wave made by the seal as it chased the Mullet. As I have said in past posts the Outfall attracts large shoals of Mullet and is a regular food source for both birds and fish. It was whilst it was doing this that it popped its head up one time for air, had a look round and dived again and then reappeared 40 meters away in a matter of seconds. This wrinkled my forehead immensely as there was no way it could have seemingly got there that quick or could it? Shortly after all became clear, there were actually two of the beasties.

The smaller Cow with a Mullet

As I continued to watch, I eventually saw both together at the same time, one was a big Bull and the other a smaller Cow, whether or not they were working as a team on the Mullet is hard to say, occasionally as I continued watching they joined up and there was some interaction. I carried on watching them for a good couple of hours, got some photos but against the light there not great.

Bull

Down the hatch

Both together

Spotted

Bull behind - considerably bigger

As you can see from the photos also they were successful on the Mullet, in a 1 hour period they caught 3 fish, one quite sizable.

Canvey Point

December 27th 7.30am to 9.30am



Despite the winds being in the wrong direction, a south south westerly was forecast early morning with gusts up to 60mph, I thought I might be in with a chance of a goodie or 2.The trip was as much about getting out after the Christmas over indulging, my diet is totally buggered and out the window, have to start again on January 1st.
Arriving rather too early I tucked myself behind the sea wall round the corner out of the strong wind which was really gusting, looking at the sea showed the tide starting to drop with some mud showing looking towards the Marina.

Definitely too early!

As the light got better large flocks of Dunlin started to show heading upriver and over to Kent all coming from the roosts at Two Tree Island, additionally small flocks of Dark Bellied Brent’s followed the same course.

As the morning progressed it became obvious that there was little movement with no Divers or Auks seen, 9 Common Scoter were noted and up until 8.30am an adult Mediterranean Gull was the pick of the Gulls. Shortly after this I picked up a group of 4 birds heading strongly upriver, 3 of these were adult Herring Gulls but the 4th appeared to be a white winger. The bird looked to be in 1st winter plumage, a light coffee colour all over contrasting with even paler wings, at distance, it was mid river, it stood out pretty well in the poor light. Going on size, it was of a similar size to the Herring’s, it looked pretty good for an Iceland. At that distance, it was way too far to id, it could just as well have been a small Glaucous or even a leucistic bird as Steve noted, I gather there are several at Mucking Tip.

I am not into my Gulls, but must admit this bird did look good for a 1st winter Iceland having seen a couple over the years at Rainham, too far out though unfortunately to identify.

In total for the remainder of the morning I ended up with 194 Dark Bellied Brent’s going up or across, other birds of note seen were a long flock of Knot which I would estimate at around 2400, a massive flock heading upriver I suspect for Egypt Bay.

The dark line is part of a massive Knot Flock heading upriver.

Nothing earth shattering, all we seem to get these days are westerly/south westerly winds, easterlies or even north easterlies seem to be few and far between, I suspect it has something to do with climate change.

Seen recently on a brief visit to Cliffe RSPB

Christmas Bash

On December 12th we had our annual Christmas dinner, this time with a change of venue, the Harrow in Hornchurch.
Below are a number of photos with a few light hearted captions, a good night was had by all, the complimentary headache for me the following morning vouched for that.

Just like to say a Merry Christmas to my mates and readers of this blog, good birding for 2014.

Bradders and Jono

Dean and Russ

Lee looking cool

Paul with Lee drifting off

Dick on the left, like me, getting close to the bus pass,probably closer

Yours truly trying to look intelligent

Shaun dreaming of Gulls - Steve beyond

Jono giving his Christmas speech

From left to right: Dave, Dick, Steve, Dean and Russ

Mart, still thinking of his neighbors party

Shaun thinking of an Ivory Gull

Two stout chaps