After a rather miserable week of weather, the sun is shining brightly today and we have been very busy here at Dungeness!
We are covered in gold this week as we have had lots of beautiful Goldcrests and hundreds of even more beautiful (in my opinion) Goldfinches been sighted around the reserve. To top it off we have had over 200 Golden Plovers at Denge Marsh and a female Goldeneye on Burrowes pit.
Goldcrest - Graham Parry
Goldfinch - Graham Parry
It's half term and we've been excited about the golden colours of autumn. We've had families come in to learn about what wildlife does in the autumn-time and how they can help them. We've created our own mini autumn habitat on a plate and also some bird feeders, all of which they took home with them afterwards. We had a very enjoyable few days getting messy!
Here's a little list of today's sightings to set you up for the weekend:
Water rail, great white egret, golden plover, peregrine, sparrowhawk, marsh harrier, kestrel, kingfisher, black-tailed godwit, long-tailed tit, chiffchaff, goldcrest, brambling, reed bunting.
This weeks highlight:
Lots of ring ouzels about the reserve this week. Slightly smaller and slimmer than a blackbird - male ring ouzels are particularly distinctive with their black plumage with a pale wing panel and striking white breast band. The ring ouzel is primarily a bird of the uplands, where it breeds mainly in steep sided valleys, crags and gullies, from near sea level in the far north of Scotland up to 1,200m in the Cairngorms. They pass through Dungeness on their journey south for the winter.