The Delights of Dungeness

Dungeness is a truly strange place with a very odd atmosphere.  It's the end of the line for the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway, so attracts families with children as well as "train spotter" types (all men, it has to be said) taking pictures of diminutive locomotives.  It's also the site of a rather bohemian settlement, made up of tin shacks and wooden huts, and typified by Derek Jarman's "Prospect Cottage" with its outside walls covered in poetry.  And, towering above both these (rather quaint) features, both literally and metaphorically, is an enormous nuclear power station and working lighthouse.  Something for everyone, in other words...

There are a couple of places to grab lunch in Dungeness, and we chose the one at the end of the railway which gave delightful and unrestricted views of the power station.  Here are two of the ladies in my life (including the dumb blonde - on the left, in case there's any confusion) enjoying what the Station Cafe has to offer.

I struggled to find anything photogenic associated with the power station, and this was the best I could come up with.  I know: pathetic!

It was clearly a good place for fishing, though, as there were several people on the beach trying their luck.

The lighthouse and surrounding buildings were slightly more inspiring than the power station, but the lighting was such that there was little point in wandering around the rest of the site.

Finally, a single image which rather summed up Dungeness for me.  One of the residents had clearly been beach-combing, and produced a pile of plastic junk which your average magpie would give its eye teeth for.  Impressive...

Like I said, a very strange place indeed.

Dungeness Nature Reserve

The murky conditions continued for much of Saturday, so we decided to do a bit of bird watching at the RSPB Nature Reserve in Dungeness.  I don't often suffer from "lens envy", but bird photography is one of those occasions where bigger is definitely better - especially when one's subjects are on the opposite shore of a large gravel pit!

First, the nuclear power station which forms a truly romantic backdrop to the nature reserve.

The grebes came relatively close to the hide, but the more interesting birds - such as the great white egrets - were miles away.  The sequence below is cropped very tightly, but gives some idea of the quality of the 70-200/2.8L IS mkII with a 1.4x mkIII converter.

The only other beasties which ventured close to the hide were a couple of dragonflies.  Why is it that, whenever one manages to capture these superb insects in such a way that they're nicely sharp, the background is always rubbish?

[Later note:  I'd originally thought these were Emperors, but a Wise Man has just informed me that they are actually Migrant Hawkers.  Even having looked at some reference images, I still find it difficult to tell them apart from their profile view.]

I always marvel at the way dragonflies tuck their "undercarriage" out of the way when flying.  Amazing creatures.