Steady passage and steady build up

The Bill was slow but steady this morning with a drip and a trickle of a nice variety of migrants passing by HERE. Highlights included a cracking pair of Eider, 5 Teal going east, 33 Whimbrel and 1 Barwit moving east, Red-throated Diver, 34 Barn Swallow, 6 House Martin, 3 Sand Martin, 4 Swift, 2 Yellow Wagtails and a Tree Pipit (year tick) over/coming in. Later in the day the other guys had a Pom and a flock of Black Terns. Full log HERE

I then met Andrew and we did Ferry and the Tramway HERE where the highlights were a nice accumulation of Whimbrel (68 birds by the end of the day), a flock of distant Barwits, 2 Greenshank and 1 Green Sandpiper.

I then had to go home and do some work but went out again in the evening to try and estimate the wader numbers in the harbour HERE. By accumulating some of the figures from the tramway in the morning I estimated amongst other totals 1 Brent Goose, 60 Shelduck,  100 Grey Plover, 18 Ringed Plover, 1 Lapwing, 68 Whimbrel, 32 Bar-tailed Godwit, 3 Greenshank, 15 Knot, 50 Dunlin, 20 Little Tern, 200 Sandwich Tern and 200 Med Gulls in the colony. Also had a nice first-summer Caspian Gull on Pagham Spit. The waders were mainly roosting in the central saltmarsh area making it pretty tricky to see and count them so I relied on them flying round occasionally. 

What we are seeing moving east past the Bill is being mirrored by the build up of waders in the harbour with primarily Whimbrels and Barwits moving and the odd Grey Plover and those same species building up in the harbour. Nearly 1400 individual birds in the harbour this evening not including Ferry (another 100 or so there). 

First-summer Caspian Gull

Eiders off the Bill

Barwit and Whimbrel moving east off the Bill

Sandwich Tern- there's been 200 or so moving east early every morning recently. Either migrants heading further north then the local colony birds or just colony birds moving around. This one carrying a fish presumably a local bird

Little Tern- at least 20 around the Spit this evening

Grey Plover, Knot and Dunlin in the harbour 

Bar-tailed Godwits (above) and Grey Plover, Knot and Dunlin (below). Pretty good numbers of Spring waders builidng up in the harbour. All the Whimbrels and Barwits are new in birds but the Grey Plovers, Dunlins and Knots are presumably hangers on from the winter. 

In the evening flocks of Whimbrels were flying over the harbour and off east. I assumed these were from the 68 counted in the harbour that got pushed off with the evening high tide and carried on migrating.