RXwildlife Sightings

Fine, sunny, with a light breeze - just the day for a long hike over the marsh from Union Channel, along the A259, down the Kent Ditch and the Wainway Wall to Camber, filling in several remote tetrads. Indeed, TQ92 Q and R are totally uninhabited, population density zero - how many of those are there within 60 miles of London? A good haul, with 36 species in tetrad L, 33 in Q but only 15 in R - but including a very close hunting Barn Owl. There were big flocks of Wigeon, 50 Mute Swans, 150+ Stock Doves and 500+ Fieldfares, countless Lapwings and ‘Goldies’, Little Egrets, Gadwall and Red-legged Partridges, but no harriers - where have they all gone?

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One of the first impressions of Dungeness is that the vegetation is stripey. This unusual phenomenon can be viewed on the early false-oat-grass grassland and is fixed as the vegetation ages. Why?

It is all down to the action of the waves. As well as throwing up the shingle in characteristic ridges the gravel is sorted into bands of coarse and fine shingle

This can be observed in the photograph above, with fine pea beach on the right and coarser stones to the left. This is not the only wave sorting that goes on, however. As you travel up the coast from Lydd on Sea to Greatstone the stones get larger and larger. Greatstone is well named. Read the rest of this entry »

Today the large flock of Canada Geese at Castle Water included a species I have not seen before in Rye Bay - Hawaiian Goose or Nene(Branta sandvicensis). Has one been seen before in the RX area? Click here for more info.

On the Beach Reserve the Shore Lark was still present near the Red-roofed Hut throughout the morning, with at least two Rock Pipit foraging on the saltmarsh nearby. On Long Pit, the Long-tailed Duck is still present, along with at least three Goldeneye (two drakes), while on Harbour Farm, four Pintail (below) were present on the new pits immediately to the west of Harbour Farm Barns.