** Another Year, Another Enjoyable Period Of Wildlife Watching. **

Like many other birders the first of January is the day I go out and start my bird lists, my overall year list, my Halling list , and my home list. I started off by going to Dungeness RSPB reserve, I was expecting it to be busy, but it wasn't as bad as I thought. I didn't go around the reserve I just spent quite a while in the centre before going around to the Denge Marsh Hide. I made a list of most of the usual species that one would expect to see there, the best one was a female GOLDENEYE. When Pam and I got to Denge Marsh there was a lot of people going in there so we sat and had some lunch, killing time, When I eventually got in there I settled down and the first bird noticeable was a GREAT WHITE EGRET. My main aim was to try and find a particular goose that was mixed in with all the Greylags, and that bird was a PINK FOOTED GOOSE. I was not the only one looking through the geese, but after quite a while I can feel pleased with myself and say that I found it, and the only way I could prove it was there was to show another birder it through my scope because there was no way I could tell anyone where I was looking. I left here while the light was still good because I wanted to go via Walland Marsh home, my reason, to see the BEWICK SWAN'S. I did see them through the scope, they was distant and in with some Mute Swans, and then the last birds I wanted to see wasn't as difficult as I thought because there are many more there now than there was a week ago, and these birds are: FIELDFARE  and REDWING, there must have been at least c700 maybe more. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
OARE MARSH 3RD JANUARY 2019: Pam took me to Oare because I wanted to add a few birds to the year list, it was only going to be a quick trip. I was surprised how high the water level is on the east flood, and lack of islands, hence lack of birds, still I did get a few. The main species of bird was Pintail and Teal. I did get species to put on the list including the Peregrine that spend a lot of it's time up on the Pylon.
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I have been garden bird watching on and off over the past 3 days, I have only clocked up 11 species so far. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My year list is as follows: Bewick Swan. Blackbird . Black Headed Gull. Black Tailed Godwit. Blue Tit. Canada Geese.Carrion Crow. Chaffinch. Collared Dove. Common Buzzard. Coot. Cormorant. Curlew. Dunlin. Dunnock. Fieldfare. Gadwall. Goldeneye. Goldfinch. G/B/B/Gull. Great Crested Grebe. Great Tit. Great White Egret Greenfinch. Grey Heron. Greylag Geese. Herring Gull. House Sparrow. Jackdaw. Kestrel. Lapwing. Little Egret. Long tailed Tit. Magpie. Mallard. Marsh Harrier. Moorhen. Mute Swan. Peregrine Falcon. Pheasant. Pink Footed Goose. Pintail. Pochard. Redshank. Redwing. Shelduck. Shoveller. Starling. Teal. Tufted Duck Wigeon. Wood Pigeon.