After what has been a terrible autumn for self-twitching, I finally broke, and early on Sunday morning I drove over to East Kent for the Crag Martin that had roosted the previous evening. It was only a two hour journey to Kingsdown and I arrived at 5.30am. It didn't get light for another hour, but soon enough I was standing on the beach with 60 or so other socially-distanced souls in the near-darkness, scanning the supposed roosting perch, to which there was no Crag Martin present!
Once it had got lighter, it was thankfully spotted flying about further down the cliffs and promptly did a couple of fly-bys before landing on the cliffs, this time in view and affording decent scope views. After 15-minutes or so of further flights and landing, it took off south and out of sight, not to be seen again that day.
Afterwards, Ian, Jake and I separately drove north to where the Eastern Yellow Wagtail had been, but after 20 minutes, we got bored and reconvened at Dungeness. All I saw here was a Great White Egret and two Whooper Swans. A check of the pits to the west and into Sussex revealed nothing (the norm nowadays) and so it was to Rye next. The Shore Lark took some finding, mainly as it was distant and particularly fond of feeding amongst the brackish marsh... it was however a beauty and the highlight of my day!
Lastly, I walked to Castle Water, where all I achieved was laying on the bank and nearly nodding off and scanning the scant gull roost that produced limited quality. Anyway, an exhausting day and I was pleased to arrive home two hours later.
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| Social distancing...sort of |
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| Crag Martin at Kingsdown |
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| Whooper Swans at Denge Marsh |
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| Shore Lark at Rye Harbour |
