Little Gull and Little Tern

With the small car park in Easton Lane now open, the Stilt Pools at Medmerry seem a little more accessible, but it can still be a bleak walk in when the cold south westerlies are coming in off the sea. Some days you get down there and there is just nothing to look at. Fortunately today was just the opposite. A nice sunny day and lots of birds. Photography is difficult, you are just that bit too far away from the action, but today there was certainly a lot to look at.

Perhaps the best bird of the day was an adult Little Gull. When I arrived it was asleep on the back of an island and I could well have missed it. So my thanks to Peter Hughes the warden for pointing it out. I had to wait a while for it to fly and then had about ten minutes of trying to photograph it before it moved on. Good practice for the Little Terns that were to come.

All I could see at first was just the one Little Tern out on the back of a sandy bar. Perhaps more came in or perhaps they had been better hidden hidden but eventually there were five or maybe six present.

I always forget just how small the Little Terns are. The picture below shows one alongside Black-headed Gulls which themselves are at the smaller end of the Gull family.

Small, fast, highly manoeuvrable, and a nightmare to try to photograph. You need a big lens on to get close enough for a picture but even if you can track them my lens will not focus fast enough to get the shot. The pictures below are not perfect but you should see the hundreds that have been deleted as unrecognisable

The islands look a bit short of the shingle that the Little Terns like for nesting but there is always a chance. They would at least get some protection here as the Avocets that nest at the site are very aggressive parents and see off a lot of the predators.

Also present were at least six Little Ringed Plovers. This pair look as though they are trying out nest sites.

There were a lot of other birds using the pools including a Common Sandpiper, and a brilliantly coloured Yellow Wagtail.

Common Sandpiper

Yellow Wagtail

Catching a fly -  at 1/2000 of a second and still not sharp

Also a lot of birds in the long grass around the pools.

Meadow Pipit

Meadow Pipit

Skylark

Nice also to see some young about. This young Moorhen even looks halfway pretty.

Other shots taken this week. A Black Swan On Chichester Gravel Pits. They always take a nice picture. I wonder how long it will be before they are on the British list.

Tuesday it was back to Pulborough with Dave so that he could catch up with the Nightingales. He is just back from a weeks birding in Spain with stories and pictures of Bee Eaters, Collard Pratincoles, Squacco Heron, Gallinule, etc. etc. See his blog here for some good pictures but I think good old British Nightingales take some beating

 A great weeks birding so far. Spring seems to be on hold at the moment but that just means that when the cold weather stops we still have the spring migration to come - I hope.

Hawfinch

I had two targets today, the first Hawfinch which was successful, the second Penduline Tits which was a bit of a disaster. For the Hawfinches I went to Lakeside Country Park in Eastleigh. I had seen them here in previous years and sure enough they were frequenting the same area again this year. That is, the trees just behind the cafe and next to the miniature railway line.

You can get good views through the binoculars but it is difficult to get close. They tend to stay in the tops of the trees and will fly off if you get too near. I was also having the added problem of them always appearing to land so that I was photographing into the sun. Still, I shouldn't complain, they are always a great bird to see. Two record shots are shown below.

For the Pendulines I visited Titchfield Haven and had decided to sit in West Hide and wait for them to come to me. That is exactly what I did for four hours. The birds of course went to Meadow Hide on the other side of the river. It was a long cold wait for birds that decided not to show.

There were lots of other birds around Lakeside. Repolls, Siskin, and an assortment of finches but again they were all in the tops of the trees.  This Wren made a couple of appearances. It seemed lively enough but seemed a bit on the thin side for this time of year.

There were a few Fieldfare in the trees but no Redwing that I could see.

With the long wait in the hide at Titchfield I saw very few birds but I at least managed to pick up shots of a Blackbird and Song Thrush to give a bit of variety to the blog.

The only other bird of interest was this Black Swan in the Harbour. It seemed to spend the whole day chasing a Mute Swan around the boats. I am not sure if it was feeling amorous or whether it was just trying to drive a rival off its territory.

The Black Swan is breeding in the wild and seems to have a self sustaining population. I wonder how long it will be before it is accepted as a British bird. Alternatively, I suppose, it could go the way of the Ruddy Duck and be wiped out in this country to stop it interbreeding with the Mute Swans.

Cattle Egret

I first saw the reports of a Cattle Egret at Marsh Farm near Sidlesham whilst I was away on holiday. I had seen one once before but then my pictures were analysed by experts at Birdguides who decided that it was actually a Cattle/Little Egret hybrid. Click here to see details. I had been feeling guilty about ticking off the Cattle Egret on my life list so seeing this bird was a high priority.

Fortunately it was still around when I got home. It looks like a juvenile and has probably been displaced from the near continent. It will be interesting to see how long it stays around. It has four separate dairy herds that has been moving between so it clearly has plenty of food. It will probably take a good frost to see it heading off south again.

Cattle Egret

I went looking for it late Sunday afternoon and found it in a field just south of Marsh Farm. The herd was close to the edge of the field so I had reasonable views. The bird seemed quite happy in amongst the cows but it was keeping an eye on me and moved away if I got too close. It seems strange and a little sad, that it should be so comfortable moving around under the feet of the cows and yet is wary of people coming close.

I had about half an hour viewing the bird before the farmer opened a gate at the far end of the field and the cows began moving over in that direction with the Cattle Egret staying in close attention. They were probably heading for the milking parlour. I am not sure if the bird will be waiting outside for them or if this is when it relocates to one of the other herds.

A look that says you are getting too close

Walking back to the car I found five Wheatears flying along the rocks on the south side of the North Wall. After about twenty minutes I had still not managed to get a decent picture of any of them but I did see the unusual sight of three Black Swans over in White's Creek.

Originally from Australia and with all of the birds in the UK descended from escapees, there are probably now more pairs of Black Swans breeding in the wilds of the UK than there are of many of the rarer birds on the UK list. I have seen estimates of forty or more breeding pairs which must start to put them close to a self sustaining population.

Black Swans

Its nice to see one bird population that is not in decline.