One of 3 Great White Egret's.
My first days birding of the Year after getting the all clear from my Doctors that i am fit to drive ( obviously they have never seen me drive lol ) took me to Dungeness yesterday , i started off checking the Arc pits and was rewarded with a fairly close Great White Egret , there were hundreds of ducks on the pit mostly consisting of Shoveler , Gadwall and Teal however on closer scrutiny i came across a really smart male Goldeneye which was in the company of a further 2 females .
Another pic of the Great White Egret.
I then checked out the New Diggins pits and eventually connected with my target birds 2 Black Throated Divers , these were a bit distant to get a photo but i was really pleased to see them , as i was watching the divers another Great White Egret flew behind them and landed out of sight , there was not much else on these pits so i headed of to the RSPB reserve to use there facilities and find out what else was in the area .
On my drive down to the reserve i saw my 3rd Great White Egret of the day near the farm buildings , then my pager bleeped to inform me the Glaucous Gull had been seen near the fishing boats , so i quickly changed direction and headed to the sea front.
I decided to head off to the fishing boats and after checking the gull roost i drew another blank , and then i drove a bit further towards the Lighthouse's and there it was , a superb 1st winter Glaucous Gull, really chuffed to see this bird .
1st winter Glaucous Gull.
I watched this bird for quite some time , there was also a Kittiwake roosting amongst the Black Headed Gulls which was great to see , i eventually left this superb bird and had a quick look out to sea and added 3 Red Throated Divers plus about 50 Guillemots and then i headed back to the RSPB reserve where i added 2 Redhead Smew and 3 more Goldeneye to my totals , time was getting on so i decided to head home after a quick look at the feeders where i added approx 10 Tree Sparrows to my year list , its great to be back ....
Tree Sparrows on the feeders.
