Kuwait day three- what a day!

We started the day at Al-Shaheed Park in Kuwait City where we dipped Purple Sunbird but found a Brown Shrike and a Hume's Warbler in the flowering tree that the Sunbird was supposed to be in. Brown Shrike is a vagrant here so happy with that.

We then started heading towards Abdali Farm and found a Crested Honey Buzzard from the car. 

We then successfully scored our target of Afghan Babbler at the Farm before heading to an escarpment area to look for Wheatears. When we arrived there was an off road vehicle event occurring at the site but miracously we managed to the find the main target, Persian Wheatear amongst the noise and chaos.

We then headed back to Kuwait City Bay and in the very last minutes of daylight managed to re-find the Lesser Flamingo within 3000+ Greater Flamingo.

With Greater Spotted Eagles, Black-winged Kite and Isabelline Shrikes thrown into the bag along the way today was quite simply epic.

8 WP ticks and 2 world ticks so far and more to target tomorrow. Live trip report HERE. 

Dark phase adult male Crested Honey Buzzard (above and below). The six primaries, large white sub-terminal tail band and secondary barring reaching the body are all diagnostic features. 

Afghan Babbler (above and below) 

Persian Wheatear

Brown Shrike (above and below). Five primaries projecting beyond the tertials, a graduated tail and the overall uniform brown on the back and head are diagnostic features. 

Isabelline Shrike 

Hume's Warbler- nice to find one of these too

Lesser Flamingo, front row centre with Greater Flamingos (above) 

Kuwait days one and two

Thought I would break up the winter a bit so popped off to Kuwait for a few days with Vincent. I need a few WP ticks out here and Vincent wanted to twitch a couple of birds too (Indian Pond Heron and Thick-billed Warbler were discovered last week by Pierre-Andre Crochet and Paul Dufour) so we decided last minute to take a quick trip/twitch.

Highlights so far include scoring the Indian Pond Heron (a WP mega) and a few Kuwait specialities including Crab Plover and Hypocolius and we've also had Shikra and a couple of Hume's Warblers. 

We've spent a lot of time dipping the Thick-billed Warbler (Klaus and Thomas have been out here for the last three days and glimpsed it with untickable views and we have not even glimpsed it) so have barely made a start yet but live trip report HERE.  

Crab Plovers (above) 

First-winter Indian Pond Heron (above and below with adult winter Squacco)

Hume's Warbler - sound recording below 

White-throated Kingfisher

White-eared Bulbul

Common Myna

Mainly Greater Sand Plovers 

Tibetan Sand Plover (on left with Greater Sand Plovers) 

Broad-billed Sandpiper (already moulting into summer plumage) with Dunlin, Ringed Plover, Kentish Plover and Greater Sand Plover

Crab Plovers again because they are so epic

Hume's Warbler calling 

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.