Dungeness, New Hythe and Home

I went down to Dungeness last friday. I had high hopes of seeing the six Heron species which were in residence at the time. These being: Great White Egret, Little Egret, Cattle Egret, Purple Heron, Grey Heron and Bittern. Unfortunately I only managed four, I couldn't find the Cattle Egret or a Bittern on this occasion. I blame it on the weather of course, it was very windy, often overcast and who can blame the larger birds for keeping their heads down. But you can't really complain I suppose when you've seen GW Egret and Purple Heron on the same day, plus 33 other species of birds. Not to mention some great butterflies, two of which are pictured below. The other photos that I took also fell victim to the strong wind, that's my excuse anyway.

SMALL TORTOISESHELL

PAINTED LADY

This morning, I turned my attention to New Hythe lakes. Like a lot of places it has been very quiet on the bird front of late but today was a better day with some nice birds seen and a few other little creatures as well.

There was quite a lot of activity from the geese first thing with some sizeable flocks of Canada Geese flying between the lakes with all their usual honking and trumpeting. This gave it an almost autumnal feel even though the weather was warm and fairly bright.

After months of searching for my first Turtle Dove of the year here and finally finding one last week, lo and behold I found two today. One was on the wires on the far side of the river and another was on the wires over the sunken marsh where it was purring contentedly. Also here were Whitethroat, Greenfinch and a Green Woodpecker.

On the river I found two Little Egrets busily fishing as the tide flowed in along with a single Shelduck and later a Common Sandpiper. Around Brookland lake were two Linnets, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Reed Warbler, Chiffchaff and a Kingfisher which flew silently across the lake just inches from the surface.

Abbey Mead was almost deserted apart from a large female Sparrowhawk which drifted lazily across as it was escorted off the premises by the local Crows.

The hoverfly below which posed so nicely for me is I think Scaeva pyrastri which unfortunately doesn't seem to have a common name.

Below is a shield bug or squash bug, possibly Ceraleptus lividus but i'm by no means sure. If anybody can confirm or otherwise i'd be pleased to hear from them.

I'm very grateful to Greg for pinning this down to Gonocerus acuteangulatus. This species was originally confined to Surrey (Box Hill) but has now spread to Kent and the South East. I've actually found them at New Hythe on a couple of occasions now. Thanks also to Greenie for his help.

GONOCERUS ACUTEANGULATUS (BOX BUG)

In all I had 41 species of birds at New Hythe today which is the most i've had for a while now. The only Hirundines seen were a couple of small flocks of Sand Martins. A Redstart was seen in the East Scrub last week as well but no sign of it today. This is a species I still need to find at New Hythe this year. I usually manage one or two in May but I missed out this year. Some of the other glaring omissions to my list include Goldcrest, Stonechat and Spotted Flycatcher. I think time is against me for achieving 100 species for the year. But you never know.

While walking back between Brookland and Abbey Mead with Dennis and Doreen Capeling we noticed some large insects in the top of the brambles. They turned out to be crickets and the one pictured below I think is a Dark Bush-Cricket, the second picture taken from below shows the ovipositor on the female. You saw it here first folks!

As I was getting into my car to go home from the car park I was pleasantly surprised to see a fellow blogger in the shape of Ken Browne come round the corner. We had a chat and compared cameras before he went off to try and find the Turtle Doves, I hope he succeded.

And finally..............................it's been quite a good week in the garden with Chiffchaff, Willow Warbler and four Jays all paying a visit. Below are a couple of pictures of one of the four and very welcome he is too.

Rye Harbour Thursday 22nd July

Carol and I drove down to Rye today. We've planned this a few times lately and each time we did something happened to stop us, sea fog on a couple of occasions I recall. We drove through a bit of rain on the way down but by the time we reached Rye Harbour and the nature reserve the sun was back out and with a nice sea breeze it couldn't have been better.
The first thing of note was a sighting of a Wheatear on the shingle, I wasn't expecting that. This would be one of the small number of birds that arrive in the spring on migration and stay here to breed through the summer.

As we reached the end of the first part of the track and turned right to walk westwards, parallel to the beach, the air was full of the shrill calls of Little Terns flying to and fro the sea carrying small fish for their young. They are nesting in a protected area and the reserve management 'planted' plastic decoy birds to ancourage them to breed there instead of on the open beach where they would be more susceptible to predation. What a great idea.

Also along this stretch we saw Sandwich and Common Terns which nest on the islands on the lakes. The only one I managed to get a half decent picture of was the Common variety below. The little Terns were too fast and the Sandwich were mostly too high.

COMMON TERN

Of course there were plenty of other species seen during our walk of approximately six miles including Lapwings, Little Grebe, Kestrel, singles of Dunlin and Redshank and Skylarks whose superb and endless refrain filled the air and accompanied us mostly unseen for the majority of the walk. Carol commented that it seemed as if the sky was singing, couldn't have put it better myself.

But for all this the star of the show, pictured below lots of times, were the Ringed Plover family.

THIS IS MUM

She was sitting on two eggs when we arrived. But she got off the nest briefly to reveal that she had now got another chick and just one egg to go.

THE LATEST ARRIVAL

THIS IS JUNIOR

He was looking after the other two chicks.

Without his legs he was about the size of a ping pong ball. He was happily wandering around pecking at tiny morsels, independent even at this age. But he soon got tired and made his way back to Mum.

MOVE UP I'M COMING IN

While he was tucking himself up under Mum we managed to get another glimpse of the remaining egg.

EGG AND LEG

He didn't stay under for too long before curiosity got the better of him and he popped back out, maybe he just went under to say hello to his new brother or sister.

BETWEEN A ROCK AND A SOFT PLACE

It was soon change over time on the nest and Dad got his first look at chick number three.........

HELLO SON I'M YOUR DAD

..........While Mum went off for a wash and brush up.

THE PROUD PARENTS

Hirundines seen today were Sand and House Martins. A family of Shelducks, a Grey Heron and a Little Egret also made the diary as did a single Little Ringed Plover which frequented the edge of a nearly dried up scrape.

The best butterfly of the day was a single Painted Lady which I felt was worthy of inclusion as i've only seen one other this year.

PAINTED LADY

AND AGAIN

AND AGAIN

And finally..........................we saw a humble old Linnet on the way back. Humble? I don't think so what an absolute cracker!!

LINNET