Dunge & Camber

A quip trip yesterday afternoon to Dunge followed by Camber turned out to be a surprisingly good two and a half hours (excluding travelling).

We initially headed to the quarry in search of the Stejnegers (After DNA now a Common) Stonechat . It turns out that its favoured area was the size of Wales. An then sometimes it liked a trip over the border (road). There was only the two of us there after the two guys we initially met had lost the will to live and had decided to go see some birds.

Looking one way for the Chat - Monkeys over there at the back

After tramping the area for 45/50 minutes we realised that apart from birds flying over we had managed to hear/see/flush precisely one Magie & Crow. Nothing, the place was void of all life it seemed. It was so life lifeless it felt like i was on the patch :) Actually that's not true we had a Great Grey Shrike the other day, not that i saw it. A great find by Mr McGough.

Looking another way

So we headed to the hide at Arc to look for the Ring Necked Duck. This was nice and easy. It was floating about in front of the hide although head down. It had been like this for some hours we were told. Regardless that was a Life Tick - Boom.

Courtesy of Russ who went a couple of days later

Other birds of note from the hide consisted of a Great White Egret, Redhead Smew, 3x Goldeneye.

Weirdly at the birders drink the night before i had been talking with a couple of guys and the LEO was back near the visitors centre so we headed there and sure enough sitting exactly where it should have been was one LEO.

Back to the main road with a quick stop for 11x Tree Sparrow.

Running out of time we headed to Camber for the Red Necked Grebe. We zipped past Scotney and the Black Necked Grebe which was still being reported. Sure enough the RN Grebe  was showing with superb scope views.

Again from Russ on his visit

Another Life Tick - Boom.

We then headed home.