White-winged Tern - Barry Wright

There were plenty of scarce birds to enjoy this week in Kent. A moulting adult White-winged Tern was found on the 15th at Stodmarsh and stayed in the area all week, at times showing really well. Then the next day another White-winged Tern was discovered, this time a juvenile at Dungeness, coinciding with the KOS Family Bird Day there. It too stayed for multiple days and could be viewed from the Firth viewpoint. Other scarce birds were a Stone-curlew seen only briefly at Pegwell Bay on the 15th, an at time elusive juvenile Purple Heron at Stodmarsh also from the 15th and a juvenile Red-backed Shrike at Worth from the 17th.

Stone-curlew - Martyn Wilson

There was another possible sighting of an Eleonora's Falcon in the county, this time a possible pale-morph adult was seen for several minutes hawking insects at Samphire Hoe. Short-eared Owls have started to appear with three individuals seen at various coastal locations. Another Honey-buzzard was again seen flying in off the sea in the Dover area. Wader passage was relatively modest with a few Wood Sandpipers, two Curlew Sandpipers (at Capel Fleet) and a couple of Little Stints (one of which was seen flying past North Foreland). Several White Stork were seen around the county, including a group of 11 at Stodmarsh, as the birds from the Knepp project continued to roam. Up to five Garganey could be seen at ARC, Dungeness. The Bonaparte's Gull remained at Oare.

The good autumn for Pied Flyctachers continued, with over 20 seen this week, including six in the Dungeness recording area on the 15th.

Pied Flyctacher - Jamie Partridge

In terms of sea-watching, finally some Skuas appeared, and not just Arctic, there were single Long-tailed Skuas seen off Foreness and Tankerton on the 17th, a Pomarine Skua also at Tankerton on the 17th, while a Great Skua flew past Walmer Beach on the 18th. The first Balearic Shearwater of the season flew past Dungeness on the 20th.

Autumn is certainly here, lots to look forward to. Enjoy.

Peter Eerdmans

 White-winged Tern - Peter Eerdmans

(Thanks to all the observers who posted their records on the KOS Sightings website, BirdGuides, eBird and/or the main Kent Birding WhatsApp groups, Thursday-to-Thursday. Apologies for any omissions. If anyone has any photos they think may be useful for the weekly, please send to me by Wednesday. All records of rarities are still subject to official confirmation by the relevant rarities committees)