NORTH DOWNS & BEYOND

A quiet morning on Dungeness peninsula was turned on its head by a sudden burst of activity mid-morning. I was on the RSPB reserve with Mark H and Colin T when a call from Martin C (who was sky-watching from the Plodland front garden) alerted us to a Red Kite, present in the air space between the airport and ARC water tower. We gathered by the Dennis's hide view point, but Martin's kite was a no show - however, I picked up another kite, coming from the NE and straight towards us. It started to circle above Burrowes Pit and Mark H was first to call it as a Black Kite - the bird was good enough to then head west, being seen by Martin C who was able to add it to his ever expanding Plodland list! Within half an hour up to 12 Common Buzzards and seven Hobby had moved through, four Mediterranean Gulls appeared out of a blue sky, and the first-summer Iceland Gull that had been on a Burrowes Pit island appeared to leave the area in a purposeful NW bearing. With the wind turning to the ...

Dungeness May 1983 Today I was literally rendered speechless. You hear about people claiming to have been left speechless but they really don’t mean it, it’s just a turn of phrase. But, as I’ve already said, it has actually happened to me. What caused this? A vision of God? Someone handing me a cheque made out in my name for the sum of a million pounds? No. It was a Black Kite. Admittedly rare, but hardly an apparition to equal an American warbler or colourful Mediterranean overshoot. I’d better explain.  A certain tense build up to me seeing the bird and the fact that I am in the grip of a particularly strong bout of ‘Dungeness Fever’ led to an outpouring of relief and wonder. After all, large raptors are powerful, stunning birds at the best of times. Black Kites are never twitched, they just pick a chosen few and fly by onto selected life lists. We’d arrived at the observatory mid-morning and stared into a grey, cool sky. A Hoopoe was knocking about but little else seemed ...