On any other day seeing Purple Herons flying over the reed beds would have been the highlight, or even the Great Egret fishing in the pool in front of us. But both birds were eclipsed by our discovery of an extremely rare vagrant on the ARC pit during the afternoon - a White-tailed Lapwing. This particular bird had previously done the rounds of UK reserves - Seaforth NR, RSPB Rainham Marshes and WWT Slimbridge - but fortunately for us it chose this day to visit Dungeness.
As the realisation of what we had found dawned on us, a sort of stunned disbelief set in. Malcolm and Carolyn went to the Visitors Centre to report the bird while I stayed in the hide and did my best to get some photos and video for identification purposes in case it flew off - no pressure then!
It was quite distant and the bright sunshine and strong winds meant conditions were far from ideal for photos and video. But when something like this comes along you just have to get what you can...
A mega bird, and a mega day.
No comments:
Post a Comment