Little Ring

A fresh south west wind was blowing today in overcast skies which brightened up a bit later in the day. I started the day off at the Bill with Ian and Andrew HERE. Highlights included 80 Brents moving east and 4 Great Northern Divers.

I then checked out Ferry which was pretty good with the year's first Little Ringed Plover, a Ruff, 5 Avocet, Green Sandpiper, 100 Golden Plover over Medmerry, 2 Lapwings (the only ones around) and 47 Black-tailed Godwits. Wildfowl numbers seemed quite a bit lower with only 35 Shoveler, a few Teal but still 100 Wigeon with another 200 in the harbour too. A short burst of Mipit movement at around 11am involved 52 birds flying north. 

I then went over to Pagham Spit, then East Side and finally over to Church Norton to attempt a harbour count. I made in 85 species of 2057 individuals HERE with highlights including 60 Brents still, 14 Red-breasted Mergansers in the harbour, the Spotted Redshank in White's Creek, 7 Barwits, Peregrine, Rock Pipit and still some good numbers of waders including 300 Dunlin, 158 Grey Plover and 60 Curlew. 

The Little Ring puts me on 137 for the local year. 

Little Ringed Plover and Golden Plover on Ferry

Small looking Blackwits. After the winter flock departed en masse, a few groups have been arrivng and moving through in the last couple of weeks 

Grey Plovers, Barwits and Turnstones

Dunlins, Grey Plovers, Barwit and Knot. Chat reckons 332 birds in this image which is broadly similar to what I estimated in the field which is good to calibrate my counts. 

Male (above) and female (below) Red-breasted Merganser- a little influx in the harbour today

Great Northern Divers off the Bill