Ray O’Reilly - KOS Outdoor meetings organiser  - writes:

On the 1st of November 2026, I led the new month's KOS Field Outing and what a day we had in the Dungeness area.

We met at 8am sharp and headed to a gravel pit on the outskirts of Lydd. Here we met Richard Watkins who informed us that he had seen the recently found first winter drake Ring-necked Duck, however it took us an hour or more before all the group had got onto it, and the female/juvenile type Greater Scaup and all were happy that they had seen the salient field marks that we had all studied while on site. Lyn Griffiths picked up a pair of Pied Avocets and a Cattle Egret flew over.

The weather was chilly but bright with some great light if the birds were viewed with the sunlight behind us.

We moved on a short distance to Scotney Gravel Pits all the time adding birds to our daily total which would reach 82 species. European Golden Plover, Northern Pintail, Barnacle Geese (5), Common Redshank, Marsh Harrier and Common Buzzard were all enjoyed by the group.

Our third location of the morning was yet another pit, this time the sandpit close to Jury's Gap and here we were treated to a dazzling display of Little Gulls in a variety of plumages. Here we also found another two duck Greater Scaup, these with much larger white-blazes around their faces and white cheek spots. A flock of 23 Stock Doves were notable.

Little Gull - Ray O'Reilly

A sortie around Walland Marsh looking for passerines (small birds) failed to add anything else for our day.

At the Hanson Hide that overlooks the ARC Pit we had a coffee break, a flock of three Whooper Swans were right in front of the hide and Bearded Tits were calling in the reeds.

Our lunch break was taken at Dungeness RSPB Reserve visitor's centre, where more Little Gulls were viewed. A juvenile male Merlin went past and a flock of 20 Grey Plovers were scoped up. Common Goldeneye was added to our list and a fine adult Yellow-legged Gull was found.

John Young had told us that he had seen a Black-necked Grebe from the Shirley Coward Hide but he was looking into the sun, so we headed to the Scott Lookout to get the sun behind us and the grebe was the closest bird. Its ruby-red eyes glistening.

As we stood there a Eurasian Woodcock nearly knocked our caps off as it skimmed our heads and landed briefly a few feet away from us, before showing again on at least two occasions. Finally at this site, we lucked in again to a bird flock that contained two Common Chiffchaffs, two Firecrests and five Goldcrests, absolutely fantastic.

Our final location of the day was on the beach by the fishing boats, where we had lots of Kittiwakes, Mediterranean Gulls, Northern Gannets and Common Guillemots and a few Brent Geese, Sandwich Tern and a close Red-throated Diver.

We said our goodbyes, Lyn and I went to Dungeness Bird Observatory for a cup of tea and we drove home in the dark.