We carried out our KOS October Field trip to coincide with our Big Kent Bird Migration Day where events were happening at various locations across the Garden of England.

We managed 76 species including two species of American waders and a great coda with Red-throated Divers on the sea with blood-red throats and a fine dark morph Arctic Skua.

After our meet we decanted into fewer cars and visited Jury’s Gap on the Kent/East Sussex border. We had c360 European Golden Plover and we spent a great deal of time looking for the lone adult American Golden Plover at first with no luck but a tip off by Keith Privett and great fieldcraft by Paul Johnson meant that we all had lovely scope views. The sandpit added several birds to our day list.

American Golden Plover

From here we went to the RSPB Reserve at Dungeness and met up with Andre Farrar and enjoyed the exhibition there.

A long-billed and long-legged Dunlin caused some head scratching at first as it was superficially like a Curlew Sandpiper.

We found the Pectoral Sandpiper from the Firth Lookout before having lunch and heading to the Old Lighthouse Garden to look for a yellow-browed Warbler but none of us saw it well. We then headed towards Dungeness Bird Observatory seeing Northern Wheatear and Common Raven before meeting back up with Ross Newman and having another look for the YBW.

Our final part of the afternoon was at the Fishing Boats and a 1.5 hour seawatch gave us Northern Gannet, Red-throated Diver, Common Scoter, Common and Sandwich Terns, Common Guillemot, Arctic Skua and Black-legged Kittiwake. Several Common Porpoises were also seen.

Some members Roger & Liz Ackroyd went to the Hanson Hide and saw Garganey and Little Gulls before we all headed for home.

Thanks to Lyn Griffiths for her help. Our next outing is just over a week away and fully booked.

Ray O'Reilly