The Seawatch and the Flycatcher!

 With Margie having to work, and severe winds forecast, decided it would be a good day for a Seawatch down at Splash Point Seaford, with Shearwaters being seen at Dungeness and Selsey the day before seemed reasonable to think there could be a couple past Splash today, this was based on no research and the science of wishful thinking, managed to arrive along the Seafront at approximately Six AM ,it was obvious that the wind was a lot stronger than the last forecast I'd seen and I wasn't expecting the squally shower either !! I made the decision to abandon the point and relocated to the small shelter, here I made two discoveries with the wind in this direction the shelter offers no shelter and secondly I'd forgot my cushion, a rookie and sometimes costly mistake at my age!!  I quickly rustled up a substitute using a bag for life and a couple of scarfs but it's not the same ,that'll be me sitting down gingerly for a couple of days!! Nice to get into the woolly hat and winter coat though, this birding in shirtsleeves is not for me!!

So I settled into the watch, however it was predictably, considering the time of year, slow going ,I had views of 52 Gannets ,5 Curlew,1 Sandwich Tern,10 Fulmars and a Common Scoter in the hour and a bit ,the main excitement was an all dark bird with long wings shearing in the distance, until I remembered what colour Juvenile Gannets are!!,I saw 4 altogether which I think were 2nd Calendar year birds rather than this years offspring!! Obviously with the grotty weather I'd left the camera in the car, and the birds were a long way out anyway. But I had a walk down to the point in a bright spell to try for some pics of the Gulls saw a nice juvenile Kittiwake here but it shot by to quick for a pic!

Stormy Seas

Great Black-backed Gull summing up the morning so far

Great Black-backed Gull showing it's Black Back

So what to do? decided I would give Seaford Head a look ,mainly because it was close, predictably it was windy AF up there ,Hope Gap was devoid of birds and Hope Bottom likewise except for a couple of Stonechats and even they were hunkered down. I decided to try Harry's Bush, on the way there I bumped into Seaford birding legend Bob S. who informed me there was a Pied Flycatcher and a Redstart in the bush giving me pinpoint directions, his last comment was they are a bit elusive! 

A bit elusive!!!! Lord Lucan was a bit Elusive .the Scarlet Fin Pimpernel was a bit kin elusive ,this Pied Fly was on a different level, must be the ninja subspecies in an hour of searching I had two brief views, one flying away and one as it landed on the ground for approximately 1/2 a nanosecond. Although on the plus side I did get good views of at least 2 Redstarts!

Common Redstart

Common Redstart

Common Redstart

Common Redstart

Common Redstart

Pied Flycatcher 

Slightly better view of the Pied fly!

At this point the Flycatcher started to show a little better although at one point it flew into the bottom of a bush  before emerging at the top and sitting proudly on a twig, "Hurrah at last" I thought, filling my boots with pics ,"somethings not right" I thought "it's being far to cooperative" put me bins on it Goldfinch, it had only pulled the old switcharoo on me!!

Views getting better

Pied Fly

Goldfinch 

Slightly better

At this point a few other birders had arrived, one of whom informed the us that there were Yellow Wags in with the cows at the bottom of the hill, now I had been steadfastly ignoring these cows mainly because they were at the bottom of a steep hill which I didn't want to have to walk back up, but faced with incontrovertible evidence of Yellow Wags I bit the bullet and accompanied the others down the hill. We arrived to find about 5 Yellow Wags and several Pied Wags but not the Wagtail fest anticipated nor could I find the Whinchat that had been seen. I did have to listen to the tales from the other guys of the Osprey, Peregrine and various other goodies they'd seen  earlier whilst I'd been on the Seafront watching nothing dagnabit!!

Classic Yellow Wag with cow pic!!

So braving the hill ,we headed back up to Harry's Bush , well what a difference half hour makes the Pied Fly was now showing like a right tart posing out in the open on leafless dead branches guess they perform best to a crowd!! Turns out there was two!!! 

Still trying to hide behind a single leaf!

Finally!!

Pied Flycatcher

Pied Flycatcher

Pied Flycatcher

Pied Flycatcher

And that was about it, I left the group ,no doubt the flycatcher would reappear in Top Hat n Tails and do a Tap dance right in front of them!! I made it back to the car just as the heavens opened which was lucky!!

 I quite enjoyed the morning, nice to do some seawatching, quiet as it was ,as due to lockdown I've done very little although it would have been a lot easier and probably more productive, with several pairs of more experienced eyes there!! and there was some satisfaction in getting usable pics of the Flycatchers, Birding with the wind is exceedingly difficult (insert own bean joke here) !!!!