Adult White Tailed Plover Dungeness.Never close in photographic terms but showing well in the scope throughout the week-end.
With Buff Breasted and Pectoral Sandpipers seen well at Titchwell the previous Sunday, the appearance of the W T Plover at Dungeness lead to a week of will it stay or will it go? In the end the Plover seemed well settled in Kent, so a week-end enjoying the warm hospitality of the Observatory at Dungeness followed. The journey down on the M25 was a nightmare but the Plover showed well on our arrival - with only 1 other car in the car park and 1 other birder on site !
The breeding Purple Herons required a little more patience but also offered excelent views - part of a 5 species Bonanza that included superb viws of the Great White Egret, a Bittern skimming the tops of the Reeds, and the resident Little egrets and Grey Herons. A thoroughly enyoyable bright and breezy week-end
1 of several Immature Yellow Legged Gulls at the patch. Large numbers of Mediterranean Gulls also present with an adult Little Gull
Marbled white Butterfly. Present in good numbers in the grassland around the Observatory
Sussex Emerald Moth. only found in the area around Dungeness
2 Hummingbird Hawkmoths were a bonus from the trip - 1 in the Observatory garden, the 2nd flying through the Grassland on Dengemarsh
The Power Station from the Observatory. A Peregrine was perched up at the top of the building at the time the photo was taken. Black Redstart and a striking Male Stonechat were also seen on the boundery wire
The observatory under a cloudy sky
The impressive church at Lydd
A well preserved gravestone in the churchyard from 1870, commemerating a 17 year old sailor who fell to his death from the rigging of HMS Barosa
