Decent winter birding

I did a six hour session this morning, first at the Bill HERE and then Halsey's Farm and North Wall HERE. 2 Slavonian Grebe, 7 Velvet Scoter, 1 Black-throated Diver, 35 Red-throated Diver, 2 Great Northern Diver, 45 Kittiwake, 250+ Razorbill and 350+ Gannet were the highlights at the Bill and 1 Long-eared Owl,  19 Lesser Redpoll, 10 Barnacle Goose, 2 Rock Pipit and a Pale-bellied Brent amongst the 2000+ Dark-bellieds were the highlights elsewhere. 

Now on 106 for the local patch year list. 

Official counts from the Bill today HERE. 

Velvet Scoters past the bill at dawn

Common Scoters 

Gannets on the move

Razorbills on the move- good numbers this morning moving round

41 Curlews over the Bill

Great Northern Diver

Red-throated Divers on the move 

Gannets- large numbers this morning moving west

Lesser Redpolls (above) 

Barnacle Goose- a couple of neck-tagged birds which are from Cat C populations from the north 

Curlews and Blackwits on Honer Fields

Rock Pipit

Brents. I was reading the Sussex Bird Report for 2023 recently. That year there were approx 13,000 Brents wintering in the Chichester-Pagham Harbour Complex. Presumably all the times we saw Brents at Beddington (always magical to see them flying over London)  they were heading this way. 

Wigeon

Pale-bellied Brent Goose 

Brents, West Wittering

A bright, sunny and fresh winter's day so we did a family walk at West Wittering/East Head. There were a few thousand Brent Geese out on the fields at West Wittering and were pretty tame so I managed to grab a few photos.

It really is magical living amongst all the thousands of Brents that winter round here. 

Couldn't really give the flocks the attention they needed but I did pick out this Pale-bellied Brent. Would be a good idea to go back with some time to check through these properly as there were groups coming and going all day. 

Itchenor

I spent the afternoon exploring another part of the Selsey Peninsula, this time Chichester Harbour between Itchenor and Snowshill Creek. 56 species of approx 4500 birds in 3.5 hours. Ebird list HERE.

The highlight was 3 Grey Partridges, the only area on the Peninsula where this species is hanging on. My 180th species for the Peninsula (might be 181 as I remembered today I saw the long staying Glaucous Gull on the Bill years ago). I also had a few year ticks- Raven, Barwit and Whimbrel so now on 103 for the year. Other highlights included 2 Great Northern Divers, 10 Red-breasted Mergs,  good numbers of Barwits and Common Gulls here (unlike Pagham Harbour) and 5 Sandwich Tern. 

A really nice walk along this part of Chichester Harbour with stunning backdrops depending on which way your facing- over East Head, the South Downs or Thorney and Hayling Island with Portsmouth and the Isle Wight further in the background. 

Grey Partridge- this is as good as the views got

Barwit and Dunlin (above) and Barwits and Knot (two photos below)

Brents- can't get enough of living amongst 1000s of these. 

Red-breasted Mergansers 

Flocks of Brent over Chichester Harbour with the South Downs in the background- magical sight. 

Selsey Bill and Chichester Gravel Pits

The weather has improved a bit recently so I thought I'd grab the opportunity to do a bit more local year listing and exploring. 

Yesterday morning I attempted to twitch the Red-necked Grebe off the Bill but unfortunately dipped. However there was some compensation in the form of a Slavonian Grebe, a Black-throated Diver and a couple of Sandwich Terns. Ebird list HERE.

This morning I joined the daily seawatch but no repeat appearance of the Red-necked Grebe but plenty of interest with a relatively showy Velvet Scoter, Kittiwakes and Red-throated Divers on the move, a few Great Northerns and I finally caught up with the Black Redstart and there was also a Chiffchaff. Ebird list HERE

After the Bill vigil I headed off to the Ivy Lake-complex of Chichester Gravel Pits for a bit of local exploring. I'm slowly aqainting myself with all the hotspots on the Selsey Peninsula. The pits look superb and there was a nice little selection of common waterfowl but nothing particularly unusual. Highlights included 4 Egyptian Geese and good numbers of Pochards and Tufted Ducks. Ebird list HERE.

Local patch year list now on 99. 

Black-throated Diver 

Velvet Scoter (above and below) 

Velvet Scoter and Great Northern Diver. Selsey Bill really is quite an exceptional place in the winter. There's not many places on the south coast where on a daily basis you can see multiple Great Northern Divers, often tens and sometimes 100s of Red-throated Divers, occasional Black-throats, regular Slavonian Grebes, Shags, Velvet Scoters and Long-tailed Duck with flocks of Common Scoters, auks and Kittiwakes often present. Pretty magical winter birding. 

Med Gulls 

Turnstones (above and below) at the Bill 

Black Redstart (above and below) 

Grey Seal off the Bill. The first Grey Seal I've had, a lot of them round here seem to be Harbour Seals

Egyptian Goose at Chichester Gravel Pits 

A couple of the Great Crested Grebes on the Pits were in summer plumage already

Nice light today. Grey Heron

Pochards and Tufted Ducks at the Pits 

Dell Quay

There was an inset day today so the kids still haven't gone back to school so it was another day of playing chess, eating out and fun and games at the amusements. So I'm still not quite back in the game yet. However I managed to get out this morning and checked out Dell Quay (the plan for the rest of the winter is to do some more exploring of local birding sites I haven't visisted yet). I had 44 species of nearly 2000 individuals in a couple of hours HERE. The highlight was a wintering Greenshank and a few more local year ticks. My local year list is now 87 so plenty more to catch up with yet (other local birders are around 110 so I've got a bit of catching up). 

The night temperatures actually reached 10 C for a few hours in between the heavy frosts and a blast of mild air becoming cool and I got the moth year list off to a start with Mottled Umber and a Ypsolopha ustella which I think could be a lifer. So garden moth list now on 2 species for 2025. 

Common Greenshank (above)

Brents and waterbirds at Dell Quay. The weather was awful and what with the time constraint I didn't get to check out the area properly. Apparantely there are some areas for Jack Snipe nearby and a sewage farm which can be interesting too. 

Ypsolopha ustella I think- I can't find any personal records so far so could be a lifer if correct id 130124 update- yes confirmed by the CMR team . First moth lifer of the year. 

This week

The kids are still on holiday so birding opportunities have been limited. However I managed to get the year list off to a start and did a session at the Bill on the 2nd HERE where I finally broke my duck on Slav Grebe and had two flying east. Up to five birds have been in the area since November and it's taken me this long to catch up with them. Other highlights included 9 Velvet Scoter, 4 Great Northern Diver, 10 Shag and 8 Kittiwake. 

Also did a couple of garden birding sessions HERE and HERE. Highlights included the Firecrest still present, a single Redwing and the Curlews are still in the field opposite with up to 8 in the last couple of weeks. 

Today we did a family walk round East Head HERE where 14 Sanderling and a Great Northern Diver were the highlights and tonight I nipped over to see the Long-eared Owls for the year list HERE where I picked up a few other year ticks too. 

It's been a cold start to the year with heavy frosts so no moths yet. However warm air is coming in tonight so the lights are on and fingers crossed to kick start the year moth list too. 

Over the holidays we've taken the boys to a couple of nature attractions including the Natural History Museum and the Blue Reef Aquarium in Portsmouth. 

Long-eared Owl on the year list 

Sanderlings at East Head

Great Black-backed Gull on our chimney 

Skylark at East Head 

Happy New Year

Another year and another miracle that nature hasn't wiped humanity out yet. 

The race to the bottom gets more and more feverish every year.  At some point our unsustainable system has to no longer be able to sustain itself and slip into a death spiral and who knows we might be closer to that than we all think- or maybe not. It could drag out for years or decades still, but lets be optimistic and hope for some changes this year- why not!? 

Nature needs human pressure taken off it and a deep global economic collapse has the potential to offer opportunity to do that and reboot things along sustainable tracks. Maybe the apocolyptic dynamic duo of Trump and Musk will create that collapse that we need- fingers crossed. It will be a painful transition so I guess should be careful what I wish for. 

My hope is for a new advanced system along the lines of a citizen interfaced AI driven block chain system that measures growth across multiple-indices (not just GDP but also including natural and social capital targets).  There will probably be something like Google Citizen for these social credit systems, where users are incentivised to contribute to regenerative activity through digital rewards that can be traded for goods or social priveledges. Meanwhile corporations and institutions will also be required to report activity in multi-indices and there will be a global growth metric that is set for sustainable growth. Something like that. 

As they say, think global but act local so we've got some nice little plans at Little Oak Group this year including developing Little Oak Lodge further into a self sufficient resislient homestead/wildlife garden, more new local patch bird and moth recording and rarity hunting,  expanding our Biodiversity Net Gain services at Little Oak Tree and Garden Care, escalating the Beddington Farmlands campaign, completing a new rental property in Malta, more work on the wildlife plot in Bulgaria, new papers for the Corvo project and a few foreign birding trips (while we still can- those carbon credits will be expensive in a regeneartive society!). Also planning to re-launch Thee Bryans- our light hearted propoganda machine. Anything we build we are attempting to integrate it all into digitial platforms and multi-metric frameworks waiting for the new system wave to hit (or rather a series of waves and gradual ebbs and flows). Certainly a bumpy and unpredictable road ahead and its impossible to accurrately time these things so just hope we have spread risk across opportuninites enough to survive! Fingers crossed.

It's good to dream of a better deal for nature ! Happy New Year!