CROYDON RSPB MEMBERS' GROUP - TRIP REPORT

Ongoing foot and mouth disease restrictions had ruled out an intended trip to Thorney Island, but recent reopening of the RSPB's Dungeness reserve made this alternative possible, a very acceptable one since our planned visit here in March had been an early f & m cancellation.

We joined the sizeable band of seawatchers on the beach by the power station soon after 9.30 and spent a couple of hours there, alternately scanning the horizon and casting an eye over the whirling parties of terns and gulls above the Patch. A late flock of some fifteen Brent geese, a party of a dozen common scoter and several small groups of waders passed by, all heading east, but none of the hoped-for migrating skuas appeared during our vigil. However, plenty of entertainment was derived from our attempts at seperating Arctic from common terns at the Patch and the arrival of several immature kittiwakes and a black tern in pristine breeding plumage added further to the interest.

Noon on a hot, sunny day was not really the ideal time to hunt for incoming migrants around the trapping area, but we did manage good looks at a number of wheatears and whitethroats as well as resident yellowhammers and reed buntings. A highlight was the close-range scoping of a male cuckoo as he perched on top of a gorse bush in the Observatory moat, apparently unconcerned by the combined efforts of several meadow pipits to drive him away.

After a hurried picnic lunch overlooking the ARC Pit (two more black terns and some of the commoner ducks and grebes on view), we moved on to the RSPB reserve. At Burrowes Pit, the spectacular garb of a Slavonian grebe in full breeding plumage was an eye-opener for those more familiar with the black-and-white jobs to be seen off Pagham Harbour in mid-winter. A summer-plumage male ruddy duck also added colour, its pastel-blue bill looking quite unreal. Yet another pair of black terns was seen here and we had close encounters with a common tern that repeatedly passed within an arm's length of the hide windows. The study of a large grass snake and half-a-dozen unidentified newts in a pathside pond provided a diversion before we moved on to the Christmas Dell Hide where a pair of red-legged partridges showed well and the first of the afternoon's half dozen greenshanks was noted. After the very wet summer, autumn and winter, the water table on the reserve was extremely high, pits were very full and fields up the western edge of the reserve, usually quite dry, were partly flooded. These fields provided plenty to interest us, including a pair of garganey sitting right out in the open field less than 50m away from the path, a dozen bar-tailed godwits and a few knots and turnstones in their bright breeding plumages, a green sandpiper and, rarest of all, a rather static and reclusive Temminck's stint. A yellow wagtail of the scarce (in UK) blue-headed race was also present, feeding out in the open at close range .