Over the last 10 days we have had some bumper bird sightings here at Dungeness! It all kicked off with an American black tern last week - lost on it's path and only a handful of these sighted in the UK (the first for Kent!) it has been hanging out with the regular black terns we have here.
American black tern - Graham Parry
As well as this, we were also surprised by a roseate tern on Burrowes Pit over the bank holiday weekend. However it was a fleeting visit and only seen for the day. We are still surrounded by the joyous calls of our common terns who we hope will be around a while longer. We have had a successful year of these birds breeding on our new islands and tern rafts - the final count isn't in yet but we know we won't be disappointed. We've also had frequent sightings of little terns and sandwich terns in small numbers on the reserve too.
Sandwich tern - Graham Parry
Another epic sighting this week has been a total of 12 cattle egrets spotted together yesterday in the Boulderwall fields! I've never heard of this many together on the reserve but please do correct me if I'm wrong! A few spoonbills have also been sighted here too.
Cattle egret in Boulderwall fields - Graham Parry
An array of different waders are still passing through. Today a Terek sandpiper landed briefly at Denge Marsh this morning but hasn't been seen since. Hopefully it is still around in the area. We've also had a few osprey sightings over the last few days too. These juveniles are passing through back to their wintering grounds in Africa. To top it all off, 30 buzzards (and still counting) have been seen passing over the reserve today too!
Osprey over Denge Marsh - Martin Casemore