Dungeness for Glaucous Gull, Dartford for Iceland Gull.

Up early & off to the old favourite Dungeness with the  hope of bagging the Glaucous Gull for a year tick. A quick walk around the moat area gives us nothing, so up on to the beach for  a scan of the sea, we see Red-throated Diver,a few Gannets, plus some Kittiwake & some Grebes & a couple of flocks of Scoters, it's really windy & cold so we head off to the fishing boats & get on to the Glaucous right away, so we add another tick & set off to visit the reserve, on the way Great-white Egrets are seen along with Black-throated Diver. So after a stop at the reserve entrance gates for a look at the tree sparrows that are always there we head down the track to the car park,
In Dennis hide the Black-necked Grebe adds year tick 2 for the day, while here also seen Redhead  Smew,plus Goosander.on the way home we pop into Elmley for a quick look around.
Still to much water about for us to see anything to close but when we get down to the car park a look over the wall by the toilet block Jimmy picks out our first Little Owl of the year.
As I said this is a quick visit so back in the car we head back up the track where Brian gets Sparrow Hawk that he needed for a tick & Jimmy ticks a Peregrine so not a wasted visit at all.
We intended to go home but the pager tells us of an Iceland Gull somewhere in Dartford, so as we are very near we give it a try.
With very little information Brian still finds where the bird has been seen after a few trips up & down a few roads he finds the Viridor building he had heard of this place being on bird guides at some time so we take a gamble & as we pull into the yard James Hunter a local birder already has the target in his scope so a nice easy tick for us, after getting good views of the bird on the roof we say  goodbye to James & this time it really is home time.                          

Rook ( not much about at Elmley )

A bit of fun

Just about the Glaucous