Pectoral Sandpiper

I seem to have spent a lot of time over the past week standing around waiting for birds to turn up. I went to see the Ortolan Bunting on Sunday morning. Stood around with a few other guys for about three hours waiting for it to show and eventually went home disappointed. Should have gone on Saturday, it would have been a life tick as well.

Today I went to Farlington Marsh to see the Pectoral Sandpiper. The Bluethroat reported there last night would also have been nice but given the strength of the winds it was unlikely that any small birds would be showing in the open. No point in wasting any time looking for it, so instead I wasted four hours trying to find the Pec Sand.

Got it eventually and even got a couple of pictures but why is it that when you find anything good, you usually end up with trying to take a brown bird against a brown background with backlighting and glare off the water.

Still, at least I did get to see it.

Pectoral Sandpiper

The bird showed quite well, if a bit distant, but unfortunately looked to be injured and was avoiding putting weight on one of its legs.

Pectoral Sandpiper

A few other pictures from the past week. A Corn Bunting from up on Chantry Hill, one of a large foraging flock.

Corn Bunting

and a scraggy looking Meadow Pipit

Meadow Pipit

We kept a look out for Honey Buzzards but they were all commons.

Common Buzzard

The North Wall at Pagham had a few good birds but again all a bit distant. There have been about a dozen Cattle Egrets around the area but it was unusual to see this one at the back of the Breech Pool along with a couple of Little Egrets.

and the Spoonbill roosting on the island along with the Little Egrets and Herons

Spoonbill

Also a Sparrowhawk making a couple of passes over the Breech Pool and causing panic amongst the waders feeding there.

Sparrowhawk

Willow Warbler

The Pectoral Sandpiper brings up my 200 for the year. Still a bit down on previous years but then I am still missing a few of the more common birds, Water Rail, Firecrest, Black Redstart. Must have been going around with my eyes closed. Also a big gap this year from not having an early spring Scotland trip.

Wryneck

A morning up on Chantry and Kithurst hills, earlier in the week, gave great sightings of up to ten Ravens and half a dozen Buzzards. We watched them for a couple of hours as they practiced aerobatics, squabbled over territory, and just seemed to be enjoying themselves tumbling in the updrafts.

Great fun but a bit of a disaster for me, photographic wise. I took lots of pictures but the quality was just not there; poor light, blurred, out of focus, heat haze, mist, lots of excuses but at the end of the day, probably just that the photographers skills were not up to the challenge. So only one shot from the session.

Ravens on Kithurst Hill

Find of the day was this Wryneck spotted in the distance as we waked up towards the trig point. Nice to find our own rather than have to go twitching someone else's bird, even if we did only get fleeting views.

Big crop of a distant Wryneck

Lots of Yellowhammers and Corn Buntings about although the flock of Corn Buntings seemed to be making a point of avoiding anywhere that I chose to stand.

Yellowhammer

A trip up to Cissbury today produced mixed results, with the usually reliable Monarch's Way proving to be virtually birdless. We did see a few Yellow Wagtails in with the cattle but these were spooked by the farmer coming through on his quad bike.

Yellow Wagtail

Cissbury Ring itself was also looking quiet with just a raven and a couple of Wheatears.

Wheatear

Second Wheatear

But fortunately, as we were about to leave a mixed flock of Spotted Flycatchers and Redstarts came through the wooded area on the east of the ring and rescued the day.

Redstart

Spotted Flycatchers

Earlier in the week we had seen a good number of Yellow Wagtails in with the cattle at the western end of the North Wall but these had proved to be very flighty. With good numbers of Cattle Egrets being reported it seemed to be worth another visit.

Grey Heron on the Breech Pool

There was no sign of the Yellow Wags but the Cattle Egrets were showing well with a group of twelve birds, consisting of eleven Cattle Egrets and one Little Egret. A record number for me in this country.

Eleven Cattle Egrets and One Little Egret front right

We also managed to get a distant sighting of the Spoonbill out in White's Creek but missed out on the Curlew Sandpiper that has been around for a few days.

Red-necked Grebe

Wednesday and a promising start to the day with the mist clearing and the sun starting to break through. First stop was Warblington just over the border into Hampshire. The fields around the church are becoming a reliable area for Cattle Egrets. Only one so far this year but there were eight here at one point last year and also birds present for a couple of years before that.

Find the cattle and you can usually find the Cattle Egret. This time in the field just west of the cemetery at the end of Church Lane. There is a Little Egret roost close by and this morning five of them had joined in with feeding on the insects disturbed by the cattle.

Next stop was Church Norton to look for the reported Red-necked Grebe. This is a bird that I had seen a few times before but it had always been distant and my only record shots were poor. We were fortunate in meeting Andrew House when we arrived but the update he provided was mixed - Still there but distant. 

A walk along the spit and we realised we were in luck. The Red-necked was being aggressively pursued by a Great Crested Grebe and it was bringing it in closer to the shore.

It was not clear why this bird was behaving so aggressively, possibly protecting some food source, later we saw the Red-necked happily feeding alongside another Great Crested without any problems.

Fortunately things eventually quietened down and we managed to get a couple of reasonable shots.

There was not much to look at on the North Wall other than an idiot in a light plane (G-MZPJ) making a number of low passes across the harbour and seemingly intent on disturbing all the birds. Possibly practising forced landings but if so a poor choice of locations and lucky not to be involved with any bird strikes.

With little else of interest at the North Wall we headed off to the Burgh in the hope of seeing a few raptors and downland birds. Again nothing much showing. A distant Buzzard, Corn Bunting and Grey Partridge but no sight of the Red Kites and no Fieldfares or Redwings in the usual fields below Burpham Church.

Still, a good day out and a few shots of the Red-necked Grebe that are better than anything I had before.

Ring-necked Duck

The new year always brings a new excitement to the birding. Standing in the kitchen window, as the sun comes up on New Years Day, waiting for that first year tick. Then two or three days of rushing around trying to find all those birds that you have ignored for the rest of the year. It is almost as bad as twitching but it is difficult not to get sucked in.

New Years Day always used to be a trip down to Gosport to say hello to Waldo the Ring-billed Gull. He had been returning there for so long that you always felt that you needed to get him early in the year just in case he died of old age. Now he is no longer there, the day seems strangely empty.

In memory of Waldo

Anyway Dave and I entered into the usual tick gathering exercise. Bird numbers seen were reasonable but picture opportunities were very limited. We saw the eight Cattle Egrets in the fields at Warblington. Great to see but not much chance of a good picture.

Cattle Egret

Pagham Harbour had the birds but again all very distant. The best picture opportunity being this Curlew with crab.

Curlew and crab

We had a trip down to Dungeness that proved a bit disappointing. The Long-eared Owl was not in its usual roost and we wasted hours in searching for the Stejneger's Stonechat. Dave eventually got a distant glimpse but I must have been the only person there that did not get to see it.

A Stonechat but not the Stejneger's

Best bird of the day for me was the Ring-necked Duck on the pond just by the entrance to the RSPB at Bolderwall Farm. This is the first Drake that I have seen.

Ring-necked Duck

and Kestrels everywhere

Nightingale

I have been out of circulation for the past couple of weeks and seem to have missed out on most of the spring migration. Today was a chance to do some catching up, with a trip to Pulborough Brooks to see the Nightingales.

There were a couple calling in the zigzags and three more round in adder alley but as usual none were sitting out giving clear views. The singing was beautiful but it was the picture that I really wanted. After about half an hour it all went quiet as the birds set about feeding and once on the ground I did get a few better picture opportunities.

They always seem very confiding when they first arrive. This bird was coming within about ten feet of where I was standing and often just seemed curious about what I was doing standing there.

I didn't get any pictures of them singing but there will be opportunities over the next couple of week as more arrive.

I also managed to see the American Wigeon. It was about two hundred and fifty metres away so the picture is poor. This is getting to be a bit of a bogey bird. I have seen three over the past couple of years and I still have not managed to get a decent shot.

American Wigeon

Blackcaps and Whitethroats were around the bushes but not showing very well. There was a good selection of the usual subjects, with the Dunnock, Song Thrushes, and Skylarks posing nicely.

Dunnock

Song Thrush

Song Thrush

Skylark

I also had good views of a Water Vole from Netley's Hide. She obviously had a nest close under the hide and swam straight towards us across open water.

Water Vole

It was only when she swam back that it became obvious that she was transferring the young between nests. She was being a lot more careful in this direction, keeping to the side of the water and using the long grass for cover. Very frustrating, there was a brilliant picture to be had here but I didn't manage to get it.

Water Vole carrying young

A quick trip to Pagham North Wall on Sunday gave me brief views of the Cattle Egret as it left the roost and flew across the harbour. I followed it down the east side of the harbour but could not relocate it. This is the first one that I have seen in breeding plumage in this country.

And to finish off, a moth from the back garden. Moths are not my area of expertise and after studying a few books and looking it up on the web, I had to resort to putting a picture up on the web and asking for help. I am told that it is an Angle Shades (Phlogophora meticulosa) a moth of the family Noctuidae. It's also quiet common so I should have been able to do the identification myself. I have a lot to learn.