Pegwell Bay & Ramsgate Harbour 21st December 2018

In the morning was spent in Pegwell Bay and the afternoon at nearby Ramsgate Harbour.  We were blessed with some wonderfully close views of birds in excellent light conditions.  The highlights were as follows:

• a male stonechat near the petrol station
• a small roosting party of black-tailed godwits with a single bar-tailed godwit on the garage pool
• hundreds of wigeon and thousands of cormorants in Pegwell Bay
• a second winter Caspain gull and an adult yellow-legged gull on Shellness Point 
• recently returned fulmars back on their nest sites in Ramsgate town
• a rock pipit and one of the now famous kingfishers in the harbour
• two shags, an adult and an immature, drifting past the west harbour arm at close range
• a great-northern and a red-throated diver.  The latter was in the inner harbour and very confiding.