We’ve spent a bit of time this month at Lade Pits which is our newest addition to the reserve (taken over from CEMEX in 2015). Removing graffiti from the old railway bridge has been our main job. It’s nowhere near finished as it is a tiresome and labour intensive job, but it's looking a lot better! We’ve also been enhancing the entrance ways to the reserve as well as clearing and widening pathways. In the future we hope to turn this into a really welcoming entrance way with more official and better quality signs and information boards about the site.
We’ve also been undertaking some willow and sea buckthorn clearance over at ARC. These plants can become very invasive if not managed correctly and it is important that we keep them under control to allow for growth of other shingle colonising plants, especially our Jersey cudweed which is a unique plant to the site that grows on damp sand around the water pits.
ARC reedbed - Craig Edwards
Due to very mild winter temperatures both here and on the continent, we are seeing far less winter birds than expected. Our smew haven’t arrived and we are concerned that they may not come to us at all this year. Other reserves in the UK are also experiencing this too. Climate change really is starting to affect what species of bird and also insects we are seeing and will see on our reserve in the future.
Large flocks of starlings have been 'murmurating' occasionally on the reserve over the winter. These birds look black in colour but get up close and catch them in the sunshine and they have an incredible sheen to their feathers!
Starling in the sun - Martin Casemore
Other birds of interest these past few weeks have been brent geese, goosander, merlin, curlew, cattle egret, caspian gull and firecrest.
Curlew in Boulderwall fields - Martin Casemore
RSPB Dungeness featured on Countryfile on Sunday 13th January. Our wardens were talking about the success of our new islands on Burrowes Pit and what we are doing to create habitat for the fish in the pit to feed the birds. Catch up on BBC iPlayer if you haven’t already seen it: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0c0cdbz/countryfile-kent