With a rare sunny day coinciding with a day I'm not at work, I decided to head down to Newhaven, mainly due to the forecast wind and the fact that Tidemills is generally not that muddy! Not a bad start on arrival there were a couple of Foxes, working the hedge line opposite the car park!
 |
| Foxes |
A good start, but sadly it was downhill from there, a few Redshanks in muddy creek, a flyover Dunlin, a couple of flushed Snipe, couldn't find any Purple Sandpipers on the East Pier. The small birds were likewise notable for their absence with just a few Meadow Pipits, 3 Goldfinch and a couple of Blackbirds seen. Didn't even see a Dunnock!! Though there were a couple Skylarks having a sing near the car park! No Greenfinch which is a shame, a few winters ago there were big flocks along the beach, hopefully they were just hiding up from the wind, which was pretty ferocious! On the positive side, watching the Gulls was fun, nice to see plenty of Common Gulls heading out of the river, towards the sea.
 |
| Suns up! |
 |
| Redshank |
 |
| Seaford Head |
 |
| Crow in the wind |
 |
| Crow with Nictitating membrane in operation😲 |
 |
| Rough Seas |
 |
| Common Gulls |
 |
| Redshank |
 |
| Not even a Stonechat! |
 |
| I did have some fun with the waves, I actually sat down at one point to get a different angle, was no fun trying to get back up again! |
 |
| Herring Gull, 3rd Winter I think |
 |
| Possibly a Lesser Black-backed Gull, 3 winter maybe? |
 |
| Meadow Pipit |
Battered by the wind, I decided to relocate to the West Beach. To see if the Fulmars had returned, they had! Hurrah! There was also some very showy Rock Pipits and a pair of Stonechats who weren't showy at all! There now follows far too many pictures of Fulmars and equally unnecessary amount of Rock Pipit pics!
 |
| Couple of Rock Doves! Ok they are feral pigeons, but they are living the Rock Dove lifestyle so I personally think we should give em the benefit of the doubt! |
Think I covered most of the angles there!
 |
| Jackdaw, quite a few flying around the Cliffs |
 |
| A couple of Fulmars, there was lots of interaction between the Birds, not sure how many there were altogether as they kept flying off out to sea but at least eight possibly as many as twelve! |
 |
| The Newhaven lighthouse, the wind was in the wrong direction for the big crashing waves you sometimes get here? |
 |
| Stonechat, staying distant |
 |
| Rock Pipit, a very bright individual with a strong eye stripe so possibly a migrant European bird rather than a resident British bird! |
 |
| House Sparrow |
 |
| Back to the Fulmars, Hurrah!! I hear you cry! |
 |
| They didn't alight on the Cliff often but this one landed for a few seconds |
 |
| I was hoping these were Caspian Gulls, but having consulted the experts on Birdforum they are actually Lesser Black-backed Gulls |
 |
More Rock Doves, Feral Pigeons 😂 |
So overall a quiet morning but great fun with the Fulmars!! I only fell over once!! My own fault for not changing my shoes when I got to the West Side, there were some very slippy bits! I saved the camera and the lens, which is the important bit, though got a nice bruise on me arse! No pictures!! 😂😲
