Isabelline Wheatear.............2nd Record for Kent!

Isabelline Wheatear with Lydd Church in the background.

News of a Isabelline Wheatear being found by one of the locals walking his dog (great find Paul.T.) on the 3rd November at Dengemarsh Gully Dungeness raised my pulse rate .

This incredible find would only be the 2nd ever record for Kent & of course a 1st record for the Dungeness area.

I was lucky enough to see the 1st record for Kent back in 1996 at West Hougham near Dover (where does the time go !!).

I couldn't get to Dungeness until 9th November and thankfully the Isabelline Wheatear had done the decent thing and stuck around, we arrived at 7.30am very little wind but quite cold weather greeted us, no other birders on site and after a scan of the area with scopes we couldn't pick out the Isabelline Wheatear.

As time went on other birders appeared including Chiddy, EA , RB and local birder JY.

They all went off to search further afield , i stayed put in case it appeared in it's usual areas, eventually AE relocated it at approx;  9.40am halfway between the road and Switch house .

From that point on it showed very well on gorse bushes , posts and mostly by the large pillars.

Here are a few photos taken by AE :

Isabelline Wheatear.

We watched the Isabelline Wheatear for a good hour enjoying some great views of this superb bird.

We then headed off to look for the Ring-necked Duck (found by NB & JB the previous week, great find).

After eventually finding the layby (thanks for info NB) we located the Ring-necked Duck & Greater Scaup far easier !!!

1st winter ♂ Ring-necked Duck

 

 

Red-Breasted Goose at South Swale NR

Red-breasted Goose with Dark Bellied Brent Geese

On the early morning of the 2nd November the Faversham WG pinged with news of a Red-breasted Goose showing well near the chalets at South Swale NR.

I grabbed all my birding gear and headed straight there, on arrival i met Chiddy & Colin who were still watching the Red-breasted Goose and it didn't take me long to locate it amongst the huge number of Dark Bellied Brent Geese.

Red-breasted Goose

I took some Digi-scoped pics to , here are a small selection.

Red-breasted Goose.

Un-ringed and in very good condition , right time of year and turning up with 1000's of Dark Bellied Brent Geese will hopefully help it get accepted by the powers that be.

Dark Bellied Brent Geese

 

Spending Time with Snow Buntings at South Swale NR

                                                          

One of three Snow Buntings

On the 1st November i spent a pleasant amount of time watching 3 Snow Buntings at South Swale NR, as always i took far to many photos of these very photogenic birds.

Here are a selection of photos i took whilst i enjoyed watching them.

Wing & tail stretching

Enjoying the seeds

Relief on this birds face from scratching 

Tight rope walking

Snow Bunting

 

 

Kent Highlights for October 2026

                                                3rd

                                              DUNGENESS  RSPB 

                                                                           

Pectoral Sandpiper

A trip to Dungeness RSPB on the 3rd was rewarded with reasonable views of the Pectoral Sandpiper from the Firth view point.

Pectoral Sandpiper.

These are pretty smart looking waders, it never came really close but good views through the scope.

There was also a couple of Great white Egrets which are always good to see.

Great white Egret.

From here i stuck my toe into East Sussex and had distant views of the American Golden Plover that had been seen on & off at Jury's Gap among the  Golden Plover flock.

American Golden Plover (on the right)

Also on the  3rd

RECULVER

News of a possible Semipalmated  Sandpiper at Reculver came through the grapevine so i decided to head there instead of a seawatch at Dungeness in the afternoon.

On reaching Reculver (picking up AE on route) the news had changed  from being a possible Semip Sandpiper to being a Bairds Sandpiper !!! 

We got out of the car and AE instantly said he could hear a Yellow-browed Warbler and no sooner had he said that then YBW appeared right in front of us giving some great views.

Yellow-browed Warbler

We bumped into Reculver regular MH who had walked the length & breath of Reculver without a sight of anything unusual, we did the same and meet up with MW, MC & Arne and despite a lengthy search we had no joy.

15th

OARE  MARSHES

Flock of Chaffinch

A walk up to Uplees produced a stunning male Yellowhammer & 2 Corn Buntings, there was the usual Water Rail at Dan's Dock.

Water Rail.

A look in Faversham Creek produced a decent sized flock of Redshank plus a superb Spotted Redshank was with them.

Spotted Redshank with Redshank.

There was a steady overhead movement of Chaffinch, our final count was 1008 !!!

There was also a smaller movement of Skylark when AE shouted he had got a WOODLARK !!!

I managed to get on it in my scope and had some decent views as it flew over the top fields towards the church and then out of sight.

We have been reliably informed that this is the first record of Woodlark for Oare Marshes, well done AE .

18th

PUMP HOUSE  &  SOUTH SWALE NR

I joined Chiddy & Jeremy for an early morning seawatch from the Pump House at Seasalter on the 18th.

A strong NNE was blowing and although the tide was on the turn conditions looked good for something to come past, i was checking the Swale to see if anything had already gone down when i picked up on a Leach's Petrel coming out of the Swale at approx 07.32

Once again decent scope views of this cracking bird , several Kittiwakes & a juv Little Gull were all seen well .

My main target was Leach's Petrel which i saw really well through the scope and as the tide had gone far out i decided to head home for a warm up, Chiddy went onto the seawall at Graveney and found a Pied Wheatear !!!

Unfortunately by the time i got there it had moved on, in fact only Chiddy managed to see it, congrats to him on a superb find.

My only consolation was picking up on another Leach's Petrel (10.32) flying over the mudflats into the Swale !!!

29th

JOSS BAY  THANET

Long tailed Duck

A trip to Joss Bay in Thanet for the Long tailed Duck was successful with distant scope views , i also saw a single Red throated Diver and a Gannet.

31st

OARE   MARSHES

Digi scope photo of  1 of 2 Jack Snipe

MW had found a superb Jack Snipe on the East Flood on the 31st , really good scope views of this cracking wader, unfortunately photos were not so good , however whilst we watching this bird AE announced he had found a 2nd Jack Snipe !!!

Well done to both MW & AE for finding these superb birds.

There was also approx. 20 Common Snipe & 4 Water Pipits.

Barn Owl

From the slipway we saw a Barn Owl hunting on the Sheppey side of the Swale, at least 3 Rock Pipits were near the slipway and there was a Red throated Diver still showing a little bit of red on it's throat at the end of the slipway.

A distant Merlin flew past Uplees and alighted on a very distant bush plus there were still 2 Water Rails in Dan's Dock. 

 

Rufous-tailed Robin.......... At South Landing Flamborough

                                             SOUTH  LANDING

                                     FLAMBOROUGH

                                    27th October 2026

                                                

Rufous-tailed Robin

News of an incredible find on the 20th October at South Landing Flamborough got the whole birding world in panic stations !!!!

Zak Spaull had found the UK's 5th only Rufous-tailed Robin , massive congrat's to Zak Spaull on his truly amazing find.

I didn't get the opportunity to try and see this incredibly elusive bird until Tuesday 27th  October. 

We left Kent at 12.30am and arrived at approx 5.30am after driving through monsoon weather conditions at one point !!!

The Rufous-tailed Robin has been incredibly elusive since it was first found, we had heard horror stories of 9 hour waits without a sniff plus some people only getting the briefest of views after spending hours waiting, 5 second views were about the best some got, however it had also shown well on the odd occasion giving 20-30 second views at times.

We were in the opinion that we needed to get in position on site asap because there is only a small viewing area looking down into the ravine plus step ladders were needed for viewing if the crowd got to big.

We got in position , thankfully there were only about 15 birders in total so step ladder was not needed, as it begun to get a bit lighter one or two European Robin's begun to call, then after about 10 minutes the shout went up !!!

'It's on the Path', we spread out but in the grim light i couldn't see anything , a European Robin appeared on a fence post but the RTR was nowhere to be seen.

Then the shout went up again. 

'It's back on the path'  and sure enough this time i saw it , right out in the open, i couldn't believe my eyes or our luck, the Rufous-tailed Robin then started to feed in the leaf litter at the base of a tree, then flew up and landed on the bench before disappearing behind the log pile.

It then more or less reappeared straight away giving some absolutely awesome views as it fed in the leaf litter and even out in the open on the path walking straight towards us at times, we watched the Rufous-tailed Robin for the next 45 minutes, it then flew behind the log pile again and we decided to head off as it was beginning to get quite busy with more birders turning up.

Here are a selection of some of the many photos i took.

Walking towards us.

Rufous-tailed Robin

We also saw 3 Tundra Bean Geese & several Pink footed Geese on Beacon Hill.

Tundra Bean Geese & Pink footed Geese

 We then headed to Bempton Cliffs and after a search of the car park bushes we located the stunning Pallas's Warbler which showed well but was to quick for the camera, we also saw Firecrest, Goldcrest (4), Chiffchaff (3) & several Tree Sparrows.

On the way out of the reserve we saw 15 White fronted Geese in a field.

Tree Sparrows

White fronted Geese.

Our next destination was Mundesley in Norfolk, the journey was very long and arduous but we eventually arrived and the run around begun !!!

The Slender-billed Nutcracker was very flighty this afternoon and we were finding it very hard to catch up with it, after a good hour trying to see this bird we all eventually saw it by the bridge on Water lane on top of an aerial plus some good flight views were obtained.

Slender-billed Nutcracker

What a fantastic trip in great company with Steve .C. & Julian .R. , a very special thankyou to Steve for not only organising this trip but for doing all the driving, the machine strikes again !!!