Poms with Spoon's............At Dungeness

Light Phase Pomarine Skua.

Checking the forecast last night had me thinking it could be a good day for Pomarine Skuas off Dungeness today so a very early start had me arriving by the sea watching hide at 5.20am , the first Pom Skua went east at approx : 5.37 am so my timing was pretty good and i spent a productive 3 hours there til 8.20 am , I then went of for a toilet break and coffee to warm myself up and i also had a quick look over the Arc pit before i headed back to the sea for another 2 hour session from 10.30 am to 12.30pm  here are my joint totals for both sessions:

All birds were moving East unless otherwise stated.

            Pomarine Skua : 23   (4 in first session)

Great Skua : 3

Arctic Skua : 3

Black Throated Diver : 1

Red Throated Diver : 3

Common Scoter : 375

Pintail : 5

Shelduck : 2

Shoveler : 2

Fulmar : 3

                    Gannet : 20  (east & west)

Little Tern : 7

Arctic Tern : 3

Sandwich Tern : 10

                          Common Tern : 150 + (east & west)

Kittiwake : 5

Oystercatcher : 50 +

Whimbrel : 15

Bar Tailed Godwit : 7

Sanderling : 18

Dunlin : 1

       Auk sp : 22 (east & west)

Guillemot : 3

Yellow Wagtail : 2 (in off)

Swallow : 3 (in off)

Harbour Porpoise :  2

Note the full " Spoons ".

Drake Garganey on ARC Pits.

One of many Common Terns .

Other birds of note were Black Redstart calling from inside the power station grounds plus a distant Sparrowhawk circling over the Bird Obs.

Just a Bit of Fun Quiz Week 40 answer plus new " Mystery Bird "

1 of 3 White Stork's  seen in 2012.

Last weeks " Mystery Bird " was in fact 1 of 3 White Storks that i saw in West Sussex in 2012 , there has been a great response to the Quiz this week  and all the time there is interest i will keep the quiz going so a big thank you to everyone who has taken part .

The correct entries this week are : Ellis Lucas ,  Ben M , Martyn Wilson , Mike.H. , Mark Lewis , Marc Heath , Matthew B , Steve Ashton , Chidders and Gideon K .

Here is this weeks " Mystery Bird "  :

Week 41 " Mystery Bird " ??????

If you fancy ago just leave your answer in the comments or you can DM me on twitter @RobsBirding ,  i will reveal the correct answer and entries next weekend , good luck and thanks again for taking part.

New Patch Tick at Dungeness.....Black Winged Stilt

Female & Male Black-Winged Stilts.

With the weather not being that great over the weekend i decided to wait til this morning to go for the Black-Winged Stilts that had been seen at Dungeness over the weekend , my pager beeped into life confirming they were still present so of a i set and duly arrived at the RSPB visitor car park just after 10am , there had been no more news since 7.30am and the staff at the centre didn't know if they were still around or not , they didn't even know that they had been seen that morning !!!

Male Black-Winged Stilt.

I headed of to the flooded hay fields behind the Christmas dell hide and the route was alive with birds displaying and in full voice , Common Whitethroat , Sedge Warbler and Cetti's Warbler were the main songsters and i had my best ever views of a Cetti's Warbler which was tail and wing flicking right out in the open , amazing to see and worth the journey on its own.

I also added a Cuckoo to my year list as it flew across one of the fields and briefly landed on a post before carrying on with its journey , i eventually reached the flooded fields and was quickly onto the Black-Winged Stilts which was a very welcome patch and year tick for me , they were a little bit distant and there was a heat haze but great scope views were obtained .

Common Whitethroat.

I watched the Stilts for about half an hour and apart from when i first arrived when they were walking around they remained asleep with the odd preen every now and again , i headed back and managed a couple of pics of Common Whitethroat which seemed to be everywhere , i also had a great but brief view of a Whinchat which would not give itself up to my camera.

Another Common Whitethroat.

Singles of Yellow Wagtail and Swallow were seen flying over head and a look over the ARC pits produced good numbers of Common Tern which were also new for year for me . Other birds of note were a Peregrine Falcon over the back of the Pylons behind the Christmas Dell hide and a singing Black Redstart which i couldn't locate by the power station.

Just a Bit of Fun Quiz Week 39 answer plus new " Mystery Bird "

Week 39 answer is Twite.

Last weeks " Mystery Birds " were indeed Twite which i saw at Titchwell in Norfolk in 2012 , they were in a flock of about 60 birds.

Well done to all the correct entries who are : Ellis Lucas , Mark L , Mark Lewis , Ben M, Matthew B , Martyn Wilson  and Mike.H. 

I also set a second challenge of how many birds were in the pic ( see last weeks quiz pic ) and to be honest i am not entirely sure myself as the pic is not that great , however after several counts i kept coming up with 22 birds , so any count of between 20 and 25 is close enough.

Just like to say unlucky to the incorrect entries this week and many thanks to everyone who took part , Here is this weeks " Mystery Bird ".

Week 40 " Mystery Bird " ????????

If you fancy ago just leave your answer in the comments or DM on twitter @RobsBirding and i will reveal the correct entries and answer next weekend , good luck.

Its all Blue at Restharrow

Blue-Winged Teal female in flight with Shoveler.

Having heard that there was a female Blue-Winged Teal on Restharrow scrape in Sandwich  had me heading that way , i was greeted with the news its just flown out of sight behind the reeds ( yep usual story !!!!  ) , i was also informed it was keeping close company with a male Shoveler , i kept scanning the reeds where it had flown into and could make out the Shoveler and eventually they female Blue Winged Teal also came into view but very obscured behind the reeds .

Female Blue-Winged Teal.

Eventually the Blue-Winged Teal came into full view at the back of the scrape and was never very far away from the Shoveler , something spooked them as they both took to the air and flew straight towards the hide veering of to the left and landed again in the reeds , they did come out in the open a few times but never that close .

Blue-winged Teal and Shoveler.

I added a few year ticks from the hide including approx 5 House Martins which were among a throng of Swallows and Sand Martins plus a single Common Whitethroat was displaying from one of the bushes along the side of the scrape , 2 Little Ringed Plovers were also flying around the scrape and landing on the small muddy island every so often.

One of two Little Ringed Plovers.

After about an hour of watching the Blue Winged Teal i decided to walk back to my car and check out the flooded field opposite Restharrow and was very pleased to find four Yellow Wagtails of which 2 were male Blue Headed and i am pretty sure there was also one Channel Wagtail , the fourth bird was a bog standard Yellow Wagtail but great to see all the same.

Male " Blue Headed Wagtail ".

Channel Wagtail.

A really enjoyable birding session with 5 year ticks to boot .

Nightingale & Bittern in the Stour Valley

Garden Warbler ... Honest lol

I was undecided to where to go this morning , either Oare or Stodmarsh , i finally settled on Stodmarsh which proved to be a very good decision , as i parked up in the reserve car park i instantly heard a Garden Warbler which was very near my car , it didn't take me long to find it and although i saw it well it never really stayed long enough for a clear pic as you can see by the above photo. I then walked around to the Reed bed hide and heard a Bittern " Booming " as i approached the hide and was again when i was inside the hide however i could not locate it , there was very little bird life from here but plenty of bird song , cetti's , Chiffchaff , Lesser Whitethroat and Bearded Tit all in fine voice but none of them wanted to show themselves.

Female Marsh Harrier.

I made a quick phone call to  Chidders who was around the other side of the reserve at Grove Ferry with Martyn Wilson and the decision was made to join them , i had time to add a female Blackcap to my year list and then a short drive and walk soon had me teaming up with Martyn and Chidders , after a short chat we heard a distant Nightingale which was my first of the year , then Chidders picked out a distant Hobby which was a great spot at that distance and was also another year tick for yours truly , we were then just chatting about the Grasshopper Warblers that they had heard early in the morning / night lol when Chidders said i can hear one now and i also picked up the call which was very brief .

Then Martyn thought he saw it fly close into and below the ramp which we were standing on , the Grasshopper Warbler then started to " Reel " , fantastic and so close , it begun to move around giving very brief glimpses and every so often it would " reel " before moving through probably back into the reed bed. We also added a quite high flying Kingfisher which was good to see.

Peacock.

I then decided to head off towards Harrisons hide and try to connect with a Wheatear that they had seen earlier so we said our goodbyes and of i went , i saw plenty of Sedge Warblers and heard Bearded Tits but failed to re locate the Wheatear , i headed back and had short look in the Feast hide but didn't really add anything new. There were plenty of butterflies on the wing , mainly Small white and Peacocks , I may of seen a Clouded Yellow earlier when i was near Trenly woods but it was very very brief so i can't be sure.

Another Peacock.