Window to Wildlife

Another full day of birding, meeting Becky at Pagham Harbour. We started at Church Norton around 8am looking out over the harbour on a falling tide. There were good numbers of Sandwich Tern roosting on the grass beside the harbour wall, and these gradually spread across the mudbanks as they were exposed as the tide receded, leaving a series of shallow channels. After some time, Little Terns began to appear, like dainty fairies, poised momentarily with brilliant white shining wings vertically aloft,  before plunging head down to the channel to capture a tasty fish. When roosting on the mud alongside the Sandwich Terns, they looked tiny in comparison, and their white foreheads and yellow bills contrasted clearly with the black head markings. We were only able to locate a single Common Tern here, in fact a juvenile, and were pleased to be able to successfully identify this, with assistance from the Collins bird app! There were good numbers of both Curlew and Whimbrel present, and some...

On a beautiful sunny but breezy afternoon we travelled to the Cuckmere meanders in search of migrating waders which had been reported earlier. The place was heaving with visitors and we rated our chances as low, but in the channel beside the main river we struck lucky with our target birds, despite the high pedestrian traffic. Firstly we located a juvenile Wood Sandpiper, poised at the corner of a small creek and bobbing its tail up and down in the characteristic manner of many sandpiper species. It scurried along the edge feeding actively, showing its long yellow-green legs and brown mottled back, together with prominent supercilium extremely well. We have seen this bird several times now and have become confident in identifying it. Tim managed some decent photos too: Wood Sandpiper We continued along the track to a small lagoon sheltered from the beach. Here a distant Little Ringed Plover only revealed its identity in flight, when it flashed plain wings, lacking the white wing bars o...

It had been planned to visit Oare Marshes again this year once waders had started to return and so following reports of lesser yellowlegs there this week Jenny contacted me to ask if I was available. We arranged to meet up at 8.30 a.m on Friday. I arrived a bit early and briefly looked at what was around but without much success as I didn't bring my scope with me and so I waited for the Sussex contingent of Jenny, Tim, Sue and Becky who all arrived on time.  Our first task was to try and find the Bonaparte's gull which is a regular visitor each year and had been reported again recently in the usual stretch of beach by the slipway.  As usual it took a long time searching for one black head amongst all the chocolate coloured heads of the many black headed gulls. After a few false identifications we eventually managed to convince ourselves that we had found the right bird by also comparing the bill colour (black not red), the brighter colour and shorter length of the legs. When s...

Today I arranged to visit Knepp with Jenny and Tim to try to see the white storks which have been nesting there and also perhaps a little owl as they had been reported there recently. When we arrived at Knepp we were joined by Jenny's friend Becky who was hoping to see turtle doves there. Our first stop was at the precise location on the path from where Jenny and Tim had previously seen a little owl and within a couple of minutes I managed to spot the bird sitting in a tree about 50 metres away. We took some photos and then headed on towards an area where turtle doves had been heard in the last few days.  Before we reached that area Becky spotted an unusual looking butterfly which turned out to be a purple hairstreak and several other walkers were interested to see what we were looking at. Unfortunately we were not successful in finding the turtle doves at the expected area and so we left Becky at this point as she continued her search  and we retraced our steps and made our w...

Our first extended visit away from home since lockdown, and it felt so good to be out and about with treasured family members and in beautiful locations. We visited Portland Bill on our first afternoon, and enjoyed scrambling over the rocks and checking the birdlife out at sea. There was a flock of gulls feeding offshore and many juvenile Gannets with them, plunging powerfully into the sea in search of fish. Around the headland Guillemots and Razorbills could be seen on the sea and flying up to the cliff edges where they were presumably nesting, although this was not visible from the shore. We had two gloriously sunny days and visited Abbotsbury sub-tropical gardens, with distant views over the Swannery and along the Fleet and Chesil Beach. By Wednesday, the weather had turned grey. We were up early to search for shearwaters which had been reported in Wyke Regis and at Portland, this time taking our scopes as well as bins! We started at Camp Road in Wyke, but it was drizzling and...

We combined our single household bubbling weekend at mum’s with a birdwatching outing with my brother, Andy. And a very successful weekend it was too! We started early, and drove to our first stop at Benfleet, where a Marsh Warbler has been present and singing on a footpath close to the station for several weeks. This would be a lifer for us if we were able to track it down, although Andy had previously seen one. However, finding it was the challenge...There were a number of footpaths and no clear directions. We headed in the direction of the railway line and were soon walking alongside some reeds - clue number one, as Andy had seen photos of the bird showing in a reed-bed. Clue number two soon came into view - a couple of men with binoculars dangling around their necks, motionless and staring into the reeds. They quickly confirmed we were in the right place, and within a few minutes the bird fleetingly appeared, but was easily identified by the stream of glorious song it poured fort...

We had previously gone looking for Nightjars at Pulborough Brooks a few weeks ago, and although we heard sustained charismatic churring, we failed to get good views of any birds. So we travelled to Lavington Common to meet with some friends for another attempt on Wednesday 17th June, meeting at 20.30 while it was still quite light. We headed out on to the smaller heath and wandered along the track, finding a Tree Pipit calling in a pine tree and a Yellowhammer singing for his ‘bread and cheese’ supper behind us. A Dartford Warbler was heard, then located  flitting in some small birch trees. All seemed quiet, so we retraced out steps towards the car park. Suddenly a Woodcock called and took off from the low-lying heather to our left and flew across in front of us, revealing its long bill. A great view, unusually in decent light at around 21.30. We crossed the road to ‘the Plantation’, where the growth is generally taller and a little less open, with more scattered pine trees. ...