I spent the morning at Dungeness with Bob Bland.The weather was better than the forecast,clear and bright,although there was a chill in the air with the NE wind.

First stop was the fishing boats to try for the Glaucous Gull which has been in the area since November.There wasn`t the usual gull roost on the beach where the bird can sometimes be seen,so we headed off to look at the sea and hopefully find the bird there.However when we reached the edge of the beach instead of seeing water we saw sand.In all of our years of visiting Dungeness this was the lowest we had seen the tide,presumably it has something to do with the Moon being nearer to the Earth at the moment.Anyway Bob picked up the bird on the sand with his scope and luckily it then flew,first heading out across the sea before turning back and finally flying over both our heads.

Although it was rather late in the morning we decided next to do a sea watch, but we only stuck it out for thirty minutes,noting just three Common Scoter and a hirundine,which was probably either a Sand Martin or a Swallow.While we had been walking out there we had in fact passed David Walker who is warden of the DBO,on his way back from just doing a sea watch and he had told us that there had only been a light passage and he had seen a small number of Brent Geese,a Whimbrel and two Garganey.

It was then onto the Hanson Hide on the slim chance that the Penduline Tit would be showing,but it wasn`t to be.Instead we had to be contented with three Goldeneye and one Black-necked Grebe,which were nice all the same.

We then went round to the RSPB reserve centre for a bite to eat,but while we were there we heard that two Little Ringed Plover had just been found on the ARC pits where we had been watching the Goldeneye and Grebe.So before heading back home we went to have a look and has luck would have it they were still there along with two Redshank and one Curlew.Bob remarked on the way home that at least now there was no need for him to visit Sevenoaks for his year tick!.