Chinese pond heron all to myself

On Thursday 20th February my call today got cancelled by the user, so as the Chinese pond heron had been reported again I set of to Hythe, I arrived around 09:00 at Turnpike hill, No others birders around, had a quick drive around and the parked up. At the time I did not think I would see this bird as it spends a lot of time in back gardens out of view. Any way I got out my binoculars and started to go through the trees near the children's play area, when I found the Chinese pond heron, it looked settled so I quickly went back to the car for my scope, and got some great views and some record shots. Put the news out, but the Chinese pond heron was flushed by a passing dog walker and flew deeper into the wood and out of sight.

I then went onto Dungeness,

 where I started with a quick sea watch, a few Little gulls feeding around the patch,

then to the ARC to shelter from the rain and have some lunch.

Rain seemed to stop so headed for the viewing area for Hookers pits, stopped of at Boulderwall farm for Tree sparrows.

The started again so I went to RSPB main building and waitied to see if rain would stop, it didn’t look like it was going to, so I started to head home down the track, but the clouds where clearing, so I parked up at the farm and the sun came out, so went to viewing area.

I had no luck with finding any Bearded tit or Penduline tit, earlier I had been in contact with LRGE, about the Chinese pond heron and Lee arrived, we search the reeds for the Penduline tit, it was windy, so we did not see any but had great views of Marsh harriers. on the way back to our cars had good views of a Great white egret,

and then back to our homes.

2014 Year List = 135