Kent Ornithological Society 
Ray O’ Reilly, KOS Outdoor meetings organiser writes:-
‘Our final Kent Ornithological Society Field Trip of the year took place on December 18th, and once again we made our way to the Dungeness peninsula. I am always grateful for the active support and help from my partner Lyn in managing these events.
It was a day of blustery wind with frequent tenacious bouts of rain - but my admiration for the group was hugely enhanced by their cheerful demeanour as they stuck it out until the bitter soggy end! Hard core birding!!
We met at the Hanson Hide Car Park and moved into fewer vehicles for our sortie onto Walland Marsh via Lydd. Two or three Common Buzzards were exceptionally tame and they sat right next to the road on the ground or on fence posts, feeding I think on the worms that were rising to the surface as the soil became ever more waterlogged. Huge numbers of gulls and crows fed in the fields along with Northern Lapwing, Stock Doves and Eurasian Skylarks. We were soon viewing through telescopes eight Bewick's Swans at Midley and their number had increased to 22 when we re-visited the site late in the afternoon. There were thousands of Common Starlings and a fast declining bird - a Mistle Thrush - was picked out among a few Redwings and Fieldfares.
We were delighted to pick out a solitary Whooper Swan in a flock of Mute Swans at Newland's Farm during a particularly foul stretch of weather.
Moving onto Dungeness RSPB Reserve we watched all three species of Egret - Cattle, Little and Great - birds that were unheard of at Dungeness 20 years ago.
Two Brent Geese flew over and a group of Common Goldeneye were enjoyed by the group. The flooded gravel pit on the right of the road as you approach the coast from Lyd, passing the entrance to the RSPB reserve on the left, is called ‘New Diggings’ and we followed from within the reserve The Walker's Outland Trail. which takes one to the western side of the New Diggings. We were delighted to find a Great Northern Diver on the water and all enjoyed good views of this handsome bird. However there was no sign of the reported Long Tailed Duck.
We moved on to Burrows Pit, adjacent to the RSPB centre, where we saw an adult Caspian Gull that was found by one of our group but it didn't linger for too long before taking flight.
While we were having lunch, our youngest regular attendee on our KOS outdoor meetings found the reported female Long-tailed Duck which favoured us all by being extremely close and giving us all splendid views of this handsome Northern species.
Afterwards we went to the fishing boats drawn up on the shingle and carried out a sea watch together. There were plenty of birds with streams of Black-headed Gulls, Black-legged Kittiwakes heading West, as well as Northern Gannets, Red-throated Divers and Common Guillemots among thousands of Great Cormorants.
Our final hour was spent looking for wild geese at Denge and Walland Marshes. We found Greylag and Canadas before ending up at the Woolpack Inn - close to the wind turbine site - for the well known Harrier roost. We saw around ten Marsh Harriers but the rain, wind and light was so bad that even the best optics were defeated! But it was a good day of typical winter birding and we finished the day with a count of sixty species. Our thanks to Bruce Rolls for the image of a Great Northern Diver.
I hope all KOS members have a very Happy Christmas and I look forward to seeing many of you on our 2025 outings.’
Best wishes
Ray & Lyn
Dates for 2025 outdoor meetings:-
January 2nd - Cliffe Pools
February 2nd - Destination to be announced
March 30th Destination to be announced
April 20th Destination to be announced
May 14th Destination to be announced
June 8th Destination to be announced
Please contact Ray directly to book a place: Tel: 07879 636198 or email :