Kestrel

Ring Ouzels have caused me a great deal of wasted time this year with my only sighting being a brief glimpse as one was spooked from the Cissbury Yew by a Sparrow Hawk.

I was not going out today. For me Saturday is not a birding day, but I was keeping an eye on the birding reports. Ring Ouzels were everywhere - Blackdown, Sheepcote, Pagham, Portslade, then 200+ at Hastings and 400 at Beachy Head. Then one reported at Cissbury. There were sure to be more. A chance for good views and a photograph. It was late afternoon but I had to go.

You guessed it. A walk around the ring and visits to the Rifle Butts gave me nothing. The only option was to spend more time standing in front of the Yew tree waiting for another brief glimpse. And that's exactly what happened. An hours wait, a flash of silvery grey as something crashed into the Yew tree and then the contented calls of a Ring Ouzel from deep within the tree. Dipped it yet again!

Fortunately there is an almost tame juvenile female Kestrel on the Ring. It seems totally indifferent to the presence of people although the dogs do cause it to move on. Standing in the middle of the patch that it was hunting over I was able to get some great photographs before the light faded.

This shot taken at 1/160 sec showing how the Kestrel can hold its head and eye steady, to aid hunting,
 despite the rapid wing movements.

Not what I was looking for but at least something worth photographing. The Ring Ouzels will have to wait for another day. The trouble is that the weather forecast for next week does not look that good and I am starting to run out of days.

Ruff

A mixed bag of birds, locations and weather today. We started out in overcast conditions with a visit to Cissbury Ring and a stakeout on the Yew tree that Ring Ouzels stop over in
each year. The climb up the hill probably did us good and we had a pleasant hour or so looking at the view but there was no sign of the Ring Ouzels or of any other birds apart from a few crows.

Next stop was Pagham North Wall to see if I could improve on my Curlew Sandpiper pictures. No luck again as they had moved further down the creek on the rising tide but there was a Ruff on the Breech Pool and the usual collection of Black-tailed Godwits along with a couple of Spotted Redshanks and a few Snipe that were showing well.

Ruff in amongst the Godwits

on alert

and feeding

The Snipe were more active than usual, feeding, running around, aggressive behaviour, and tail fanning. Perhaps practising courtship techniques for next year!

Snipe

Snipe

With the weather improving we decided to move on to Church Norton to have another look for the Pied Flycatcher. It had been seen just before we arrived but as with the previous day it had gone into hiding when I arrived. There were even more Spotted Flycatchers about today. It was difficult to do an accurate count but probably ten or more just in the area outside of the church grounds.

So yet more pictures of Spotties:-

Spotted Flycatcher

Likes butterflies as well as Flies

So we dipped out on our three targets for the day but we still had a good days birding and enjoyed the Autumn sunshine.