The Phantom Branta

News broke late morning of a Red-breasted Goose from North Wall so Marc and I met up to track it down. Marc got to North Wall first and there was no sign. The bird was reported with 2 Pale-bellied Brents and 3000 Dark-bellied Brents but that was a bit odd as in recent days there has been a big clear out of Brents from the harbour. Maybe a new group had migrated in from further south? 

We then checked out the fields east of Marsh Farm where the geese had been getting this winter. There were 300 Brents in the fields but nothing with them. 80+ Cattle Egrets was some compensation. Our next place to check was the Rookery Lane fields but only 2 Brents there.  

Marc had to get back to work but I continued the search. As there has been some movement between the harbour and the Ham fields at Medmerry I drove over to check that area but again no Brents there.

The only other place on the Peninsula that concentrates Brents is West Wittering and East Head so I went over there and indeed there were 1500+ Brents in the West Wittering fields but nothing with them. It would have been odd if I found the North Wall birds there as we generally assume the Chichester Harbour and Pagham Harbour birds are from different populations. 

I had basically checked everywhere and couldn't even find the 3000 Brents! I spent the rest of the afternoon walking round East Head to see if the Snow Bunting was still there but alas I dipped that too but there was some compensation with my first Black-throated Diver for the year and a couple of Great Northern Divers off East Head. Checklist from today HERE. 

Marc got some more information from the Bird News Services and it turned out the record of the Red-breasted Goose had come from Bird Track by a birder nobody recognised the name of. After a bit more detective work by Andrew the best explanation is that someone had put historical data into Bird Track but forgot to change the date because there was actually a Red-breasted Goose off the North Wall with 2 Pale-bellied Brents and 300 Dark-bellied Brents on 27th February but not in 2026 but alas in 1986. 

So it appears I spent all day trying to track down a bird from 40 years ago. Got to be the deepest dip in birding history!

The Black-throated Diver puts me on 126 for the Peninsula year list. The first Wheatear appeared in the county today. 

The Brents at East Wittering (above and below)- despite the complete waste of time looking through them it was actually nice to have a good look at them as soon they will all be off to Russia

Cattle Egrets at Marsh Farm East fields- at least 80 birds

I checked out Snowhill Marsh while at East Head- the highlight was 31 Snipe feeding on the edges 

No Snow Bunting at East Head but singing and displaying Meadow Pipits and  Skylarks (above) and a couple of male Stonechats

A poor photo of one of the Great Northern Divers off East Head and a shockingly poor photo of the Black-throated (below).