Scaup mini-twitch
The Dungeness point maintained its silence this morning, and that resulted in practically every birder defecting to the RSPB reserve. Here at least there are birds - in fact, it is nothing short of a tremendous place to visit at any time of year. In late Autumn you can guarantee Great White Egrets, Little Egrets, Bearded Tits, Cetti's Warblers, Water Rails, Tree Sparrows and Marsh Harriers; there will also be Merlin, Bittern and Raven if you stay long enough. Wildfowl numbers will have swollen and the Lapwing flock harbours ever increasing numbers of Golden Plovers. And all that is just for starters and plenty of other notable species will be lurking. One such species 'lurking' this morning was Scaup, with two immature females found by Mark H on Dengemarsh. These birds were the first at Dungeness for over two-and-a-half years, and prompted a mini-twitch. It didn't used to be this way. Back in the mid-1970s to the late 80s they were found easily on Scotney, Lade Pit an...