Ewes and Smews - a day at Dungeness

Date of visit 27 Jan 2015
After seeing some stunning photos of both male and female Smew taken by people I follow on Flickr, and having a free day as my wife was out to lunch and shop, I took myself off to Dungeness. I stopped first at the ARC hide to see if the reported Kingfisher was around, it wasn't, but there were some distant Goldeneye - which are all I ever seem to see, and a Chiffchaff was briefly feeding so close to the hide it was difficult to get a shot. Just as I'd decided to leave a Sparrowhawk swooped past the hide and into a clearing in the reeds just out of sight. Judging by the pitiful alarm calls and squawks, a Blackbird was about to meet its end.

I made my way to the Scott hide where the Smew had been seen. They were still about although quite distant, however after a little while a female swam in towards the hide, they seem to favour fishing around that area, everyone got ready to take some shots but the light was terrible for photography, the sun was behind the bird and reflecting off the water terribly. I took quite a few shots, especially when she came up with a sizable perch, but I later deleted all these shots, even allowing 2/3rds of a stop over exposure the bird was essentially silhouetted. Having caught a fish it swam away to eat it at leisure out of the gaze of its admiring public.

I had to content myself with a cormorant that was sunning itself on the water level board just outside the hide, it had no such coyness towards the avian paparazzi, posing and performing like a seasoned celeb.

The cormorant was forgotten when a Kingfisher flew towards us and settled on a branch to the right of the hide, again light was bad but no glare off the water, I got a couple of shots before it flew off.

The male Smew started swimming towards us and again we all got ready but he swam into the overhanging trees off to the right, caught a fish and made his exit. They were much larger fish than I'd imagined they could catch and eat, probably over 15cm long, (bigger than most of the fish I've caught!) I went for a walk to see what was around at the other hides, a Marsh Harrier and Bittern were the highlight of this break from the Scott hide but both were too far off for a photo. I did however get some shots of these two ewes, looking one way, then the other, then at each other - I was sure there was a comic line I could add but haven't thought of it yet.

I returned to the 'Smew hide' and I'd apparently missed some good views but everyone seemed confident they would return. They did, both male and female although the female did her fishing out of sight of the hide. I did get some half decent shots of the male.

Click the photos for a larger view.

A swim past by a Little grebe (how do they stay so dry and fluffy ?) finished my day at the hide, with one last walk around ARC lake I was rewarded with a Bittern which had climbed up a bunch of reed stems to get a view out across the lake, either that or it was a giant bird.

Heading back home I couldn't decide whether to leave the A20 and take the Alkham Valley or stay on it to Dover, I chose the latter as it can be quite busy trying to get out at the junction in Kersney. Bad mistake - both lanes of the road were blocked by lorries, not apparently Operation Stack but just too much traffic to clear the port of Dover. I was stuck in the queue for about seventy five minutes before I could leave at the Capel junction, not the perfect end to a very good day.