Dungeness Nature Reserve Bulletin

1 November 2011

Bird news (October 2011)

The most surprising sight in October was a lesser spotted woodpecker flying into the Willow trail at the ARC site on the 22nd. This was the first ever record of this species on the reserve. Equally exciting was the appearance of a Pallas’s warbler, which was found in willows at Hooker’s pits, alongside the Lydd footpath on the 27th.

Unfortunately both birds were only seen by a handful of people, whereas a good number of visitors were able to see the little auk that turned up on Hooker’s pits on the 13th. Other highlights included a glaucous gull flying over Burrowes pit on the 21st and a ringed penduline tit seen from the Hanson-ARC hide on and off from the 15th.

The first signs of winter started to appear from the middle of the month, with two white-fronted geese at Denge Marsh on the 14th, the first smew of the season (a redhead) seen on the ARC pit on the 25th and 26th, and up to four goldeneyes, also on ARC, on the 27th.

A white egret was with us all month and a glossy ibis was seen from the 6th until the 16th mainly in the fields near Boulderwall, although it did venture as far as the Water Tower pits towards the end of its stay. A single spoonbill was on Denge Marsh on the 24th and bitterns were seen regularly.

Bird of prey highlights included two hen harriers on the 16th and a short-eared owl near the entrance track or near Christmas Dell on four days.

Eighteen species of wader were recorded in October the most notable being a dotterel among the flock of golden plovers at the ARC site on the 19th. A pectoral sandpiper was at Denge Marsh on eight dates from the 4th until the 20th,, a single jack snipe was seen on the 18th and 11 avocets flew over the site on the 9th.

Anyone lucky enough to be on the reserve on the 13th was treated to a really great day’s birding. Ten ring ouzels were seen along the edge of the entrance track, flocks of fieldfares and redwings were on the move, five bramblings were spotted and 10 crossbills flew over.

Large flocks (50+) of goldfinches were around the site from mid-month and smaller flocks of redpolls and siskins passed overhead. On the 30th there was a rare sighting of a woodlark in Christmas Dell, where both goldcrest and firecrest were also seen.

Maintenance news

With winter almost here staff and volunteers spent a lot of their time clearing vegetation from different areas of the reserve. The area of reed and willow looking out from the Willow trail viewpoint was cleared to provide opportunities to see the reedmace heads much favoured by penduline tits. We also did some clearing in natural pit 6 (between the car park and New Excavations). The pit was dominated with reed, shading out the understory vegetation, which includes locally scarce species such as brown sedge, marsh cinquefoil, marsh speedwell, common/black sedge and bottle sedge. Bottle sedge, Carex rostrata, was extinct in Kent until it reappeared from the seed bank of pit 6 following willow clearance to promote fen regeneration in the early 2000s. It just shows all this willow and reed clearance is worth it!

Most of the islands on Burrowes and ARC pits have now been cleared of willow, as have areas in front of the Visitor Centre and Firth hide.

Vegetation clearance has been going on in advance of an electric predator fence being installed around the hay fields and flood field. The installation is due to start in the middle of November, and its position is marked out with white electric fence posts for the interim period.

The winter harrier roost counts have now begun; unfortunately, we only recorded two harriers (of the marsh variety) dropping in to roost in the Oppen pits on the count date, but have since noted that more are choosing to roost in the Denge Marsh/ Hooker’s reedbed instead. Therefore, this area will be included in the next count. As for more general results, the October harrier roost counts have recorded the highest ever number of roosting harriers in the Romney Marsh area for this month.

We have been stepping up our tree sparrow feeding regime, with additional (and bigger) feeders now in place near Boulderwall Farm. We’ve been trying out both red and white millet to see which the sparrows prefer and it seems that the red is winning. The flock regularly feeding around the farm house and reserve entrance now numbers in excess of 40 birds.

RSPB Dungeness Nature Reserve

Tel: 01797 320588

mail: dungeness@rspb.org.uk