Bank Holiday Weekend

A return to prevailing conditions and an Atlantic airflow has more or less closed the portal round here. On Saturday morning the Bill was very quiet HERE and a walk round Ferry, Long Pool and the Tramway was mainly about breeding birds HERE although a Wood Sandpiper was still present on the pool, there were a few waders in the harbour and the summering Black-tailed Godwits arrived this weekend to Ferry with 44 birds there by this morning HERE.

A family walk round East Head yesterday produced 52 Whimbrel, 3 Wheatear and an LRP HERE.

As it basically felt like the doldrums of summer I decided to twitch the Red-crested Pochards at Chichester Gravel Pits which have miracously walked their young across the A27 from Quarry Road to New Lake. Four chicks were still alive and well this morning.

With some cloud cover at night and some thunder storms from the south too the moth trap has been more lively with some migrants and also there has been a small arrival of Painted Ladies on the Peninsula. The year list is now on 88 and the all time list on 636 (with 3 new ones but not sure what as irecord difficult to work that out) . 

Red Crested Pochards New Lake- a Peninsula tick. Now on 212 and 171 for the year. 

Wood Sandpiper

Whimbrels at East Head

Mainly first-summer/ non-breeding Black-tailed Godwits. Arrived this weekend

Bar-tailed Godwit and Greenshank 

Egyptian Goose young Chichester Gravel Pits 

Lobster moth

Pinion-streaked Snout 

Painted lady- a few of these on the move this weekend. On the moth migrant front there has been a few Diamond-back moths and Silver-Y, single Small Mottled Willow and Rusty-dot and a few Turnips and Angle Shades. NFYs over the last few days have included Rustic Shoulder Knot, Knotgrass, White Ermine, Rough-winged Conch, Treble Lines, Clouded Border and Buff-tip and there is still the odd Early Grey and Common Quaker. 

An even better day

We've been looking forward to today all week with an accurately predicted south east lighter wind and warmer air. After yesterday's great day it was going to be tough to beat. 

It was perfect 'Pom conditions' on a perfect 'Pom date' and quite a crowd had gathered from far and wide (including LGRE who was nice to see). Between 5am and 930am it was basically very dissappointing and the day was set to become an epic flop. However salvation arrived at 0938 with a close pale phase Pomarine Skua flying past followed by some close Arctic Skuas , (and three more distant Poms) and then at 1035 two absolute stunning Bee-eaters flew over our heads calling and spent the next 45 minutes flying around Selsey and back over our heads several times. They were around long enough for Marc and Justin to twitch them and Ian was happy as it was his Peninsula bogey bird.  Thrown into the punch was a total of 5 Arctic Skuas,  a nice flock of 13 Kittiwakes, a bit of Scoter and wader passage, some late Brents, three Diver species and Hobby and Peregrine and I also whipped up egg, bacon and sausage baps from the campervan kitchen for the gang. My list HERE. Full log HERE. 

I then decided to do some wader hunting. Ferry is still performing with one Little Stint, 2 Wood Sandpiper, 2 Common Sandpiper, 1 Greenshank, 1 Little Ringed Plover, 3 Bar-tailed Godwit, 1 Black--tailed Godwit, 5 Dunlin and also Cuckoo and Lesser Whitethroat singing from the Discovery area. HERE

Next stop was Medmerry where I used the bike to get down to the Breach and checked out Stilt Pool HERE. Highlights included 13 Whimbrel, 8 Barwits, 1 Greenshank, 9 Sanderling, 8 Dunlin, 1 Lapwing (the only one around) and 9 Ringed Plover. 

The Bee-eaters were a Peninsula tick so now on 211 and 170 for the year and 840 for the world year list. In the last couple of weeks I've had Bee-eater, Hoopoe and Woodchat Shrike with supporting cast of Wood and Curlew Sands, Little Stints, full summer Spotted Reds,  14 Poms, Black Terns, Little Gulls, Manx Shearwater, Eiders, Garganeys, Arctic Terns, good wader passage, good Wheatear passage, Ring Ouzel, Nightingale, a Caspian Gull and in early Spring there was Serin and Whooper Swans. I effing love it here. As Adam and I agreed today, nobody in history has ever spoken the words 'I miss living in Croydon'. 

Bee-eaters

Pom (above and below). LGRE was saying that there are now about 100 Poms that migrate up the Channel each Spring , sadly down from a population of 400 a few decades ago. They breed in Western Russia and are a distinct population from the birds that move up the west coast of the UK. We counted all the Poms past Dungeness this year from their blog and there's been around 100 through there this Spring so assuming that most birds have now gone through already- will see.  We also had an interesting discussion about the dark phase Pom from yesterday HERE, a morph which is supposedly rare in the Channel population. On the same date and time last year we also had a dark morph HERE so it's possible it's the same bird doing it's annual routine. Who knows? 

Arctic Skuas (above and below)

Kittiwakes

Black-throated Diver

Brents still on the go 

Summer plumage Bar-tailed (left) and Black-tailed Godwit 

Sanderling

Whimbrels at Medmerry 

Selsey Birders 

Great Day

A great day today set to a F6 easterly wind. 

I started the day off at 530am at Ferry where there was an amazing arrival of 5 Wood Sandpiper, 2 Little Stint, 4 Greenshank, 2 Common Sandpiper and also 2 LRP, 12 Avocet, the Black-tailed Godwit and a Yellow Wagtail. The stints were at the back of the pool in poor light and were difficult at first to identify and while I was trying to sort them out news broke from Paul Bowley of 5 Poms already past the Bill. 

I therefore abandoned the stints, quite sure they were Littles (which were confirmed later) and headed to the Bill. It was one of my best days there HERE with a further 12 Poms (4 at 0820, a flock of 7 at 840 and a single bird around 930), 4 Arctic Skuas, 6 Black Tern, 51 Common Scoter, 16 Grey Plover, 12 Whimbrel, 185 Bar-tailed Godwits, 4 Turnstone, 86 Knot, 75 Sanderling, 22 Dunlin, 138 Little Tern and a few hirundines. Full log HERE

Due to the arrival and passage of waders, at lunchtime I drove over to Snowhill Marsh to check it out but there was only 4 Greenshank, 2 Barwits and 5 Whimbrels there but it was very exposed and windy. 

In the late afternoon another go at the Bill produced a few more waders but no more Poms unfortunately (one more was seen before I got back there by Justin). 

A great day! The Little Stints were a year tick. Now on 169 for the local year and 839 the world year list. 

Three pale phase and one dark phase Pomarine Skua (above)

Seven more distant pale phase Pomarine Skuas (six visible in this image- click on image and zoom in to see) 

Single Pom

2 pale phase Arctic Skuas

Summer plumage Knot with a Barwit (above) and Sanderling (below). Interesting that the Knot in the harbour are still mainly in winter plumage (pic from yesterday here) so presumably different age/population. Knot are basically one of our most common 'Nearctic' birds with birds in our region breeding in Greenland and Canada HERE. Not sure on the route they take but these ones decided to head north over Selsey village. According to Birds of the World birds either head north to stage in Iceland or first go to the Wadden Sea and then head west to Iceland to stage before moving onwards to the breeding grounds. 

Bar-tailed Godwits- over 200 today recorded by the log

Sanderling and a Dunlin

Dunlins and Sanderlings 

Knot and Turnstone 

Barwits (above and below)- can't get enough of them! 

Whimbrel numbers seem to be post peak with only 12 today and only 5 birds at East Head/Snowhill

Greenshank and Little Stints at Ferry at dawn. Better image of a stint here

Barwits

The north easterly was almost gale force today and there was one bird that seems to be enjoying it, Bar-tailed Godwit. 

The Bill was a bit more lively this morning HERE with 39 Barwits, a couple of Whimbrel , a Manx Shearwater going west, a Bonxie and over 90 Little Terns in a feeding flock near the beach. A in-coming Cattle Egret was interesting. 

The Ferry still had the Garganey, Wood Sandpiper and the winter plumage Curlew Sandpiper and Avocet numbers were up to 15. Shoveler are hanging in there with 3 birds and a LRP and the summer plumage Blackwit is still there too. The 2 Greenshanks were still in the Channel. 

After some paperwork and some garden work I spent the afternoon at East Side HERE where there had been a clear influx of waders with a nice summer plumage Curlew Sandpiper (found by the North Wall crew earlier in the day), 65 Grey Plover, 8 Whimbrel (either a clear out or they were hunkering down from the wind), 35 Knot, 195 Dunlin and the bird of the moment an impressive 135 Barwits. Also had a Cuckoo calling from North Wall area and there was a bright Chiffchaff that I would like to have got more on. 

The forecast has a shift to a due easterly for tomorrow and a lighter warmer southeasterly on Friday which is basically a perfect wind for this time of year. Currently clearing the decks of all work and responsibility to do an all-dayer on Friday. 

Barwits moving east past the Bill

Great Skua

In-coming Cattle Egret- a Bill oddity

Summer plumage Curlew Sandpiper with Dunlin

Spot the Curlew Sand in with Knot, Grey Plover and Dunlin (the latter also below). As usual to have a proper look at any photos on blogger click on them first for a higher res image . 

Barwits in the harbour- the largest flock of 75 were in the centre again but there were also plenty closer in

Chiffchaff- the warblers were hunkering down in the strong wind but there were some sheltered spots along the East Side footpath. I would like to have heard this rather bright bird call or sing to rule out Iberian Chiff but it flew down the hedge and not much chance of it singing in the windy conditions. 

Jacob and I found a couple of moths by dusking yesterday evening. Sulphur Tubic, Esperia sulphurella (above) and Feathered Bright Incuvaria masculella (below).