Non-Stop Birding: Red-backed Shrike, Pagham Harbour

As the weather was looking promising for today I did all my work yesterday so that I could spend all day in the field today. A great little day.

I started off at Ferry Pool where 7 Barnacle Geese (or hybrids as there has been a group of Barnacle x Cackling geese around from Arundel WWT) flew over at first light and 2 juvenile Ruffs were just visible in the poor light. It then started raining heavily so I joined Andrew & Co at the Bill for a seawatch (from the van), not much moving but plenty of Sandwich Terns around and 3 Common Scoter were off shore. Then it was over to Church Norton where Andrew found a first-winter Pied Flycatcher and I had my first Goldcrest of the autumn and soon after news broke of a Red-backed Shrike that had been found nearby at the Horsefield.

Surprisingly the shrike was a stonking adult male rather than an expected young bird and it showed really well in what had now become a constant light rain.

I then checked out Mill Lane Marsh (highlights were 2 Greenshank, 3 Shoveler, 8 juvenile Blackwits and a juvenile Barwit) and then met up with Holly for lunch.

In the afternoon I went back to Ferry at high tide where 115 Redshank, 2 Spotted Redshanks and 12 Knot were roosting and then back to Church Norton. Large numbers of Med Gulls were concentrating in the fields and on the sea- 350 was a conservative estimate. The Red-backed Shrike was still there and there were 3 Wheatears on the broken concrete and about 250 House Martins flying around the Severals and Bluebell Woods hunted by a Hobby and later a Sparrowhawk. There were also two Swifts about.

I met up with Andrew again and on the way back we had an Osprey fly west along the beach- a nice end to a cracking little day. Ebird list HERE (morning highlights) and HERE (full pm log).