Bluethroat

Monday 19th March

Dungeness

The last Bluethroat I saw was in May 1993 at Holme Dunes on the Norfolk coast, so with news of 2 birds at Dungeness I decided it was about time that I had another look at these beautiful birds.
I reached Denge Gully just before 7am, the strong bitingly cold east wind was still blowing a few light flurries of snow over the peninsula and the light was very poor as you will see from the quality of my pictures.
As I approached the gully I immediately saw a bird take flight and land few meters further up, it was a superb male White-spotted Bluethroat. I watched the bird feeding along the waters edge for a few minutes as it slowly made its way back towards me. As other birders arrived to view the bird I noticed that the bird would take flight and land about 20 meters or so further down the gully and then work its way back up towards the waiting birders and photographers.
With this in mind and the need to get out of the bone chilling wind I made my way up along the track away from the main group of birders and found a place to sit down amongst the gorse bushes over looking the gully but more importantly out of the wind. My hope was that as the birders moved about near the bridge that they would flush the bird in my direction. As I sat there quietly a group of six Firecrests moved through the gorse bushes and a Raven flew over in the direction of the power station, after about thirty minutes my plan had worked the Bluethroat was flushed and landed directly in front of me affording great views as it feed. It was lovely to sit there and have this beautiful bird all to myself and within about 5 meters of where I sat, with a little thought and field craft you can obtain good views of birds without disturbing them.
After about an hour of watching this handsome bird I headed over to Lade GP to look for the Long-tailed Duck that has been there for most of the winter, as with my previous three visits to to look for this bird I failed to find it. A summer plumaged Black-necked Grebe was fine consolation though and a couple of Chiffchaff in the Willow swamp were probably fresh in.