An even better day

We've been looking forward to today all week with an accurately predicted south east lighter wind and warmer air. After yesterday's great day it was going to be tough to beat. 

It was perfect 'Pom conditions' on a perfect 'Pom date' and quite a crowd had gathered from far and wide (including LGRE who was nice to see). Between 5am and 930am it was basically very dissappointing and the day was set to become an epic flop. However salvation arrived at 0938 with a close pale phase Pomarine Skua flying past followed by some close Arctic Skuas , (and three more distant Poms) and then at 1035 two absolute stunning Bee-eaters flew over our heads calling and spent the next 45 minutes flying around Selsey and back over our heads several times. They were around long enough for Marc and Justin to twitch them and Ian was happy as it was his Peninsula bogey bird.  Thrown into the punch was a total of 5 Arctic Skuas,  a nice flock of 13 Kittiwakes, a bit of Scoter and wader passage, some late Brents, three Diver species and Hobby and Peregrine and I also whipped up egg, bacon and sausage baps from the campervan kitchen for the gang. My list HERE. Full log HERE. 

I then decided to do some wader hunting. Ferry is still performing with one Little Stint, 2 Wood Sandpiper, 2 Common Sandpiper, 1 Greenshank, 1 Little Ringed Plover, 3 Bar-tailed Godwit, 1 Black--tailed Godwit, 5 Dunlin and also Cuckoo and Lesser Whitethroat singing from the Discovery area. HERE

Next stop was Medmerry where I used the bike to get down to the Breach and checked out Stilt Pool HERE. Highlights included 13 Whimbrel, 8 Barwits, 1 Greenshank, 9 Sanderling, 8 Dunlin, 1 Lapwing (the only one around) and 9 Ringed Plover. 

The Bee-eaters were a Peninsula tick so now on 211 and 170 for the year and 840 for the world year list. In the last couple of weeks I've had Bee-eater, Hoopoe and Woodchat Shrike with supporting cast of Wood and Curlew Sands, Little Stints, full summer Spotted Reds,  14 Poms, Black Terns, Little Gulls, Manx Shearwater, Eiders, Garganeys, Arctic Terns, good wader passage, good Wheatear passage, Ring Ouzel, Nightingale, a Caspian Gull and in early Spring there was Serin and Whooper Swans. I effing love it here. As Adam and I agreed today, nobody in history has ever spoken the words 'I miss living in Croydon'. 

Bee-eaters

Pom (above and below). LGRE was saying that there are now about 100 Poms that migrate up the Channel each Spring , sadly down from a population of 400 a few decades ago. They breed in Western Russia and are a distinct population from the birds that move up the west coast of the UK. We counted all the Poms past Dungeness this year from their blog and there's been around 100 through there this Spring so assuming that most birds have now gone through already- will see.  We also had an interesting discussion about the dark phase Pom from yesterday HERE, a morph which is supposedly rare in the Channel population. On the same date and time last year we also had a dark morph HERE so it's possible it's the same bird doing it's annual routine. Who knows? 

Arctic Skuas (above and below)

Kittiwakes

Black-throated Diver

Brents still on the go 

Summer plumage Bar-tailed (left) and Black-tailed Godwit 

Sanderling

Whimbrels at Medmerry 

Selsey Birders