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Booted Eagle - Jonathan Dodds

An excellent week of birding ended with a true mega: a pale-morph Booted Eagle was picked up by Dave Ellingworth over Broadstairs late afternoon on the 10th. This might become the first accepted record for Kent for this species no less (a record from some years ago is still in circulation with the BBRC). As it circled the wider area, apparently in search of a roosting place, it was seen by many of the local birders. It was last seen close to darkness so hopefully it can be refound.

Excitingly, the influx of Hoopoes continued. After up to five birds were seen last week, Hoopoes showed up at four further locations this week: North Foreland on the 4^th, Bough Beech on the 5^th, Farringham on the 7^th and St Nicolas at Wade on the 9^th. Again, the birds didn’t stick around for long, with the Bough Beech bird the most accommodative being twitchable for an afternoon. Other very good birds were a Green-winged Teal at Worth Marshes on the 5^th and two Purple Herons at Long Pits, Dungeness on the 10^th.

 Hoopoe - Barry Wright

As the weather continued to be very sunny and dry, summer migrants continued to arrive in the county. We added Nightingale, Reed Warbler, Garden Warbler, Cuckoo, Little Tern and Arctic Tern to the year list. The list of species we are still waiting for is shrinking, with Turtle Dove, Lesser Whitethroat and Grasshopper Warbler likely to show up in the next week or so.

Two species from reintroduction programs, presumably, toured the county. A White Stork was seen at Dungeness, Worth Marshes and St Margaret’s at Cliffe on 4 and 5 April. More unusual were two Red-billed Chough that flew past North Foreland on the 8^th. These surely come from the introduced population at Dover but this seems the furthest they have wandered from their original release site yet.

Further highlights included Blue-headed Wagtails at Dungeness, a Curlew Sandpiper at Worth Marshes, Ospreys over Broadstairs and Tankerton, a Little Gull at New Hythe and a Ring Ouzel at Seaton GPs.

The Long-tailed duck and Greater Scaup remained on show at Dungeness and Collard’s Lake respectively. Outside of a couple of Black-throated Divers, a Great Northern Diver and the Little and Arctic Terns mentioned above, sea-watching was very quiet this week.

With the Met Office forecasting Sahara dust to reach the UK in coming days, who knows what else might turn up. Good luck.

Peter Eerdmans

Little Gull - Terry Laws

(Thanks to all the observers who posted their records on the KOS Sightings website, BirdGuides, eBird and/or the main Kent Birding WhatsApp groups, Thursday-to-Thursday. Apologies for any omissions. If anyone has any photos they think may be useful for the weekly, please send to me by Wednesday. All records of rarities are still subject to official confirmation by the relevant rarities committees)