Month: June 2026

The morning’s forecast was not one that I had pegged to spend looking out to sea for Raptors but by mid morning it was apparent that the forecasted light Sw winds here in Dover were in fact coming from the South East and the yellow haze of fumes hung between here and the continent suggesting they were the same winds across the channel plus pretty good visability – ‘HB weather’.

I’d been busy first thing but was up the cliffs by 11.30 looking out South over the Eastern docks and at 12.55 picked up a Honey buzzard fairly low coming over the Eastern arm of the harbour directly towards me.

A direct hit; it flew right above where I stood and gave great views as it continued NW towards the castle and beyond. A typical line of arrival here. The harsh back lighting can sometimes make sexing tricky and I took the bird to be a female at the time however the photos suggest a male with dipped in ink primary tips, grey face and clean secondaries.

17 minutes later and an dark obvious female HB came in on a similar line, only a little higher.

I remained in place till 15.30 with no other raptor arrivals. Ive earmarked tomorrow and Tuesday as potential days for more of the same. lets see!

A light Northerly turning Westerly mid morning. Phil Chantler texted me at 5.55 am letting me know he’d found a Zitting Cisticola neat the monument at Bockhill, with the bird I found two years ago being a brief encounter I was keen to see it so made my way to the other side of the bay (thanks to a bit of help from Phil). Before long I heard and saw it well alongside Tony Morris, Jack Chantler and Nigel Jarman.

It went missing and we could not re locate it before leaving and as I type this hasnt been seen again. Whilst we were standing there I picked up a couple of Bee eater calls from an unseen bird. Nige heard the last of these too but none of us could locate it.

So that concludes spring for me. I travel to Switzerland this afternoon for 2 weeks work and will be back after summer solstice, hoping for southerly weather and HBs arriving.

Corn buntings seem to have taken a bit of a hit this year, hopefully not too hard.

Despite the forecast, the early morning was relatively birdable; the South Westerlies were fairly light and a sunny day unfolded as I walked up the cliff path from home. My journey to the South Foreland was cut short but a stroke of luck when raising my bins to look at movement in an isolated hawthorn at Langdon hole. I was confronted with great views of a Greenish warbler, feeding busily lowdown in the bush.

After a few seconds, the bird flitted to the opposite side of the cover and I moved round quickly to see it nicely in good light, often partially hidden but unhindered by my presence.

I had to leave it twice in order to get signal to put out the news, but upon returning it was still in the same spot.

It called only once during this time, after catching an insect, a standard Greenish type ‘tiz-lik’ and didn’t sing at all. Not really how I’ve imagined finding one in spring here. Viewing the bird was really quite easy going and I was sure people would connect, Ian Searle arrived and promptly saw the bird but it became elusive for the next arrivals. I saw it again 25 minutes later in it’s original Hawthorn, but lost it whilst putting that news out and despite a good few people looking it wasn’t seen until Phil C and I returned early evening and had it in the original spot again.

A text from Shane Vale letting me know he’d had a Black Kite over Dover Castle had me cursing the position I’d taken up over looking the South Foreland valley at the other end of the patch that morning. I, however, had a hunch that the bird would fly into the NE wind and therefore I had a good chance of seeing it. Nearly 40 minutes later, after a few Red Kites came my way the Black Kite appeared over Top wood and flew across the horizon towards Bockhill.

Never very close but almost constantly on show for about an hour as it moved NE then came back my way, then out to sea and back NE again, only to appear with Red kites over the valley (above). Lots of birders connected with it from locations across SE Kent which is nice.

The following day Kites continued to bottleneck in East kent with high counts of around 130 Red kites (from other observers, but no Black Kites seen)

The week ahead looks like a dull, wet and blustery SW situation, not what we want early June.