Dungeness Cattle Egrets

Chris, Paul, Samuel and I headed down to Dungeness to try and get the year list of to a good start. Our first stop was at the Cattle Egrets, at Denge Marsh Road. We connected quickly, and moved on because of the rain. We then stopped off at Horse Bone Farm, were we saw both Bewick and Whooper Swan along with a small group of Tundra Bean Geese. Then we were off to the RSPB reserve, where we saw Smew, Goldeneye and Pintail along with the common winter wildfowl. I also managed to locate 2 Firecrests, which were a nice addition to the day list and on our way out we saw a Great White Egret. So far quite a successful day. Our next stop was at the patch were we had a decent sea watch with a large number of Red-throated Divers and Guillimot flying past. To finish off the sea watch we had a Bonxie fly close past. Finally as day light was running out we stopped off again at the Cattle Egrets for a second go at photographing them. They showed amazingly, undisturbed by the noise of our cameras quickly filling our memory cards. Unfortunately the light was awful and I had to push my ISO up to 800 and still only got a shutter speed of about 1/100 of a second. All in all I was lucky to get any pictures. But the day did get my year list up to 71 species.

Digi-scope of the Penduline Tit, at Meadow Lane GP, Bedfordshire (kicking myself I didn't have my camera with me)