CROYDON RSPB MEMBERS' GROUP - TRIP REPORT

Our day began well at the Dungeness Old Lighthouse when a black redstart and two wheatears posed obligingly for us on the rooftops of nearby buildings even before we had left the carpark. Unfortunately, the several firecrests present in bushes between the lighthouse and the observatory were less cooperative and only one or two of our party managed to glimpse them, in spite of our lengthy vigil peering into the usually-productive gorse thicket. Similarly, from the beach, only a couple of people picked out the newly-arrived Sandwich terns which circled for a while with the numerous gulls over the disturbed water of the power station discharges. Apart from a few kittiwakes, the gulls here at the Patch were all of the commoner species but, when we turned our attention to others hanging on the wind high above the beach, a 'white-winged' gull was detected amongst them almost at once. With its uniform biscuit-coloured plumage (lacking any black at the wing tips) and all-dark bill, this bird was identified as a first-year Iceland gull. Before turning back inland, we noted several flocks of brent geese and a small group of common scoters passing at sea, all heading east.

News had filtered through that a 'semi-rarity' had just been discovered nearby and it rounded off the morning nicely to make a half mile diversion towards Greatstone to see the individual in question, a hoopoe. This unmistakable bird was feeding in the dry base of an old gravel pit and gave us all excellent views. (More familiar around the Mediterranean, but breeding in much of France, the hoopoe is only a scarce passage migrant to Britain - according to Don Taylor in his 'Birding in Kent', there is an average of six records per year in this county).

Our afternoon was taken up with a tour of the RSPB Dungeness reserve. As usual, there was a good range of waterfowl present, the pick perhaps being several goldeneye, an elegant male pintail and a male ruddy duck. One or two ruffs could be made out feeding with redshanks in the distance beyond Hookers Pits and, further round towards Lydd, around two hundred golden plovers, some already gaining their dark-bellied summer plumage, were resting quietly in a field of newly-sprouting cereal, ignoring a couple of brown hares browsing nearby. Closer at hand, many small passerines were active, though rather inconspicuous against the bare ground while feeding; corn and reed buntings, yellowhammers, linnets, meadow pipits, skylarks and a house sparrow were all noted. A final stern test of our identification skills came when we were confronted with several hundred large gulls resting together on the shingle near the Visitor Centre with, we had been assured, at least one more 'white-winged' gull somewhere in the flock. We were pleased that we eventually managed to detect two of these uncommon visitors to southern Britain and, although the vital id features of both seemed always to be obscured by other birds in the foreground, we tentatively concluded that a glaucous and another Iceland gull were present, both first-winter birds.