After tidying up a few things at home I set out to Dungeness to see the long-staying odd female Stonechat variant that had had recently been DNAd as stejnegeri.
I hadn’t got far when I saw the escaped Greater Rhea along Fowlmere Road! Not something you see every day, so I stopped and got a photo as it ran – top-speed – across the fields below Foxton Woods.
Carrying on to Dungeness, I eventually found where I was supposed to go and spent the next couple of hours chasing the Stejneger’s Stonechat. It was associating with a male Common Stonechat, and although they often perched on bushes as Stonechats do, they were always distant and vary wary and mobile making it a bit of a challenge and photographing them even more difficult. A Peregrine was also noted.
Dungeness 31 December 2016 13:44 - 16:50
Cloudy 6C 8SW
Shoveler, Pochard, Tufted Duck, Cormorant, Great Crested Grebe, Kestrel, Peregrine, Black-headed Gull, Common Gull, Herring Gull, Woodpigeon, Jackdaw, Carrion Crow, Starling, Stonechat, Siberian Stonechat (stejnegeri)
Edit (01/01/2017): A much better picture from Adrian Webb who I was standing next to when he took it.
Edit (05/01/2017): The Rhea eventually got caught.
Edit (18/01/2017): The DNA analysis on the Stonechat was redone as there was doubt as to why it should be Stejnegeri. It turned out to be an aberrant Common Stonechat!
