Kent Ornithological Society 
KOS Field Trip to Dungeness 24th July 2024
Ray O' Reilly - KOS Field Trip Organiser writes:-
'Thanks to everybody who attended our July Outdoor Meeting to the Dungeness area on Wednesday 24th July.
We were chuffed to record 84 species of birds and one or two interesting invertebrates as well, including a Norfolk Hawker Dragonfly, a Brown-banded Carder Bee and a Small Copper Butterfly.
We started the morning at the ARC part of the reserve which was in fine condition with plenty of islands and shorelines for birds to use. We noted seven species of waders including some Common and Little Ringed Plovers, Common Sandpipers and Dunlin.
Reed and Sedge Warblers were in sub-song and raptor species - Sparrowhawk, Kestrel, Common Buzzard, Marsh Harrier and Peregrine were all watched.
We then crossed the road for a walk around the main RSPB Reserve and were very pleased to observe a female Mandarin Duck, a first for me (Ray) in the area and a scarce bird on our KOS field outings.
In addition there were several Sand Martins buzzing about, a very early migrant Garden Warbler, a very young juvenile Common Gull obviously bred here in Kent and a bird flock that contained eight species of Warbler!
Dungeness is always a good place to see Egrets and sure enough a superb apricot and white Cattle Egret was on the Hayfields plus another three at Cook's Pool. Good views of a couple of Yellow Wagtails and a Bearded Tit provided us with a fine ending to our morning before we stopped for lunch.
We travelled down to Dungeness itself and a short seawatch after lunch gave up a handful of Gannets, numerous Sandwich Terns and three Common Scoter.
More Peregrines were watched (along with another Little Ringed Plover - they were seen at three sites today) and Meadow Pipit was added to the day list.
Our final site gave us some additional shorebirds and our last listed bird was a juvenile Hobby.
The day was one of fine weather with many plants in bloom giving life to a myriad of insects. At this time of year Romney Marsh is a magical, quintessentially English nirvana!
Thanks to the Herbert Pontin of our KOS Field Outings and Yuti Chernajovsky for all his images.
I'm already looking forward to our August trip!
Ray
