After coffee with Paul and Liz at Costa I met Andrew at the Ferry Pool (8 Lesser Black-backs were the highlights) and then I headed over to East Side and did the walk from White's Creek to Pagham Spit and back. 73 species of approx 6000 birds (half of what I had a few weeks ago) with highlights including a Ruff, 2 Spotted Redshanks, 1 Greenshank, a clear increase in Pintail to approx 200 birds and a Stonechat. Still about 1000 Blackwits and 450 Golden Plovers but seemingly a decrease in Lapwing and Brent Goose numbers which accounted for most of the reduction in individual birds.
If I'm not mistaken I'm now on 123 for the Peninsula year and 125 for the county HERE and with the Eider and Fulmar I'm on 501 for the world year.
I've had the moth trap out on a couple of recent mild evenings (back up to about 9 C at the moment at night) and had some early spring moths including Dotted Border, Common and Small Quaker, Angle Shades, Grey Shoulder Knot and Hebrew Character.
I'm declaring todays as my personal first day of Spring 2026 what with the visible migration today, the uptick in spring moths and also plenty of early flowering plants now out locally.
We've got some mild southerlies predicted for the next couple of days which could be interesting. The first Sand Martins were in the country yesterday.
Fulmar
Ruff, Teal, Spotted Red and Redshank (right to left)
Brents on the move- it has begun.
Avocet on the move
An increase in Pintail including a couple of these deeply stained or pigment saturated birds (below) which could indicate some kind of origin associated with an environment that caused that. I haven't seen any others this winter looking like that so they are presumably new from elsewhere or else it's related to plumage transformation in situ?
Knot-nice to see one close
Stonechat- I haven't seen Stonechat on my rounds on this part of the harbour for several weeks so it's possible this is some kind of migrant
Common Quakers
Angle Shades
Hebrew Character
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