Pied Flycatcher

Today, was a chance to get back to birding. Migration has started and their are a few good birds being reported. Best of all we visited Pagham North Wall and, for once, there were lots of birds there. The Breech Pool and the area north of the wall had been our favourite birding site but over the past year it seems to have been abandoned by both the RSPB and the landowner. The water levels have not been controlled and it has fluctuated between flooding and drying out. Consequently the birds slowly disappeared.

Today it looked good. Just the right level of water, plenty of mud and still some fish to be had. Waders were back in good numbers, Redshank, Spotted Redshank, Greenshank, Green Sandpiper, Black-tailed Godwits, Little Stint, Dunlin, Common Snipe, Lapwing, and Avocets. We also had Canada Geese, a single Greylag and two Bar-headed Geese. Add to these a couple of Grey Herons, two squabbling Kingfishers, two Common Terns, a Sparrowhawk, assorted ducks, Hirundines and a couple of Buzzards that put most of them into the air and we had plenty to look at. I just wish I had some confidence in it staying this way.

You would think that with all these birds I would have some good pictures but the back of the pool, especially in this strong contrasty light is just that little bit too far for the smaller birds.

Juvenile Grey Heron

Avocet  -  unusual on the Breech Pool

Common Tern

Buzzard

Next stop was at Church Norton where a Pied Flycatcher had been reported the previous day. It had been a clear night so we were doubtful on finding it still there. In fact there were two and possibly even three of them around the church yard so we spent the afternoon trying to photograph them.

One of the Pied Flycatchers was ringed so we were hopeful of being able to piece together sufficient information to find where it came from. Nearly but not quite. After a lot of work analysing pictures  Dave came up with a possible Z49592 but unfortunately this does not look like the complete number.


It was great to be back birding again - bring on the birds.