Female Kentish Plover with Dunlin.
A really productive few hours spent at Rye and Dungeness produced a hatful of year ticks , 13 in total and some especially good looking waders in various plumage , my first destination was Rye Harbour and i walked towards the new saltmarsh which is a wader magnet , on my approach i met some birders leaving who had seen the Kentish Plover earlier but had lost it to view about 20 mins ago.
Always the optimist i ploughed on and begun my search , there were waders everywhere , 3 summer plumage Knot caught the eye as did several summer plumage Bar Tailed Godwits , there were at least 200 Ringed Plover and at least 250 to 300 Dunlin , but no Kentish , i kept scanning and checking then all of a sudden i saw the Kentish Plover right in front of me on the scrape .
2 more record shots of the Kentish Plover .
This is a really smart wader , you could make out the slightly black breast marking , white collar was very evident , black legs and bill , it has a slight supercillium which was slightly buff near the ear coverts , slightly overall paler colouration compared to the Ringed Plovers , i also was lucky enough to see a partially moulting Curlew Sandpiper plus several Little Ringed Plovers .
From here i headed over to the trapping area at Dungeness and was treated to several smart looking Wheatears and a super looking male Whinchat which was being chased around by a Stonechat , there were 2 Common Redstarts plus approx 10 Common Whitethroats.
So after a much welcome mug of coffee and bacon roll i had a quick look out to sea which did not produce much the highlights being lots of Common Terns and half a dozen Whimbrel flew through , i decided to head back to Rye and had another look at the Kentish i also added 2 Little Stints and a Little Tern was delightful to see .
