Seawatch, slow again but a couple of Highlights!

 With our holiday to Shetland looming at the end of the week this was my last realistic chance to have a go for some Poms this season, arrived at about 5.30, extremely tame Fox trotted past the car as I was kitting up which was a good start. Similar to Thursday another slow one, 4 Artic Skuas through before 7 o'clock, a Black-throated Diver, a couple of Red-throated Divers, three Red-breasted Mergansers, a couple of very distant flocks of "Comic Terns" ,a few more Scoters past but most of em very distant,  Whimbrels and Barwits, 17 Brent Geese, the Mute Swan and Little Egret both put in another appearance, few small flocks of Med Gulls and a couple of flocks of Black-headed Gulls, about the same amount of Gannets as Thursday went through, a Willow Warbler and a few Swallows "in off" but the absolute highlight were two Manx Shearwaters that I managed to spot, as I was trying to work out what they were, my dodgy directions got a couple of the others present onto them who pointed out my description of two black and white small birds shearing should of been a clue!! Manx Shearwaters in my defence they were distant and I wasn't expecting them!! No excuse I know!!😊 No pics obviously were far too distant!! 

For me this year has been pretty poor seawatching wise, only 1 Pom, 11 Arctics and I haven't even had a Bonxie!! Every time I've been free the conditions have been terrible with no wind whatsoever, the fact that today there were only about 8 birders present at the height of the season, sums it up!! Looking at the reports don't think there have been many big days this year, presumably with the windless conditions the birds have been going through mid channel, but had no flocks of Little Gulls this year or any Black Terns, hopefully it's the conditions and my incompetence rather than a lack of birds!!

Anyway a few pics of some of the birds I did manage to see below. And the Fox!!

The Fox seen it most times I've visited before sunrise, combing the beach!

The usual scene setter

Distant Scoter Flock

Kittiwakes worryingly they seem to have deserted the cliffs lately maybe the cold snap putting them off?

Brent Geese

Shoreham lit up by the morning sun

The local Mute Swan

Whimbrel & Barwit

Fulmar

Gannets

Swallow "in off"

Bar-tailed Godwit

Red-throated Diver

Black-headed Gulls

Sandwich Tern

Herring Gull

Med Gulls

Med Gulls a mixture of 1st winter,2nd winter and Adult birds

Black-headed Gull

Med Gull

Day of Three Halves!!!

 I know three halves is mathematically challenging but day of three thirds didn't sound as funny😀 Day off work on Thursday to meet up with some old friends from Suffolk who were down on holiday, however due to confusion over the timing and duration of their walking Safari at Knepp meant I had a few hours to kill, so in the hope of some Skuas I headed to Seaford. Very slow Seawatch but I did get some Skuas, 5 Arctic and a Pom to be precise, unfortunately due to the distances involved and the cameras ability to focus on the sea instead of the bird I got no pictures, to be honest I couldn't even find 4 of em in the view finder!!😲 

Other sightings were few and far between, 40 or so Gannets, 9 Common Scoter, 3 divers, a few mixed flocks of Whimbrel and Barwits, 8 Commic Terns, 1 Razorbill, 1 Guillemot ,a Mute Swan, 2 Little Egrets, approximately 30 Sandwich Terns went east, was entertained by 3 or 4 of them plunging into the sea close in,  the local Kittiwakes, Fulmars and Peregrines were knocking about, meagre fare for a four hour watch😢 although lots of Swallows and a few Housemartins coming "in off" were probably the highlight except for the Skuas obvs!

The now traditional Seawatch scene setter!

Fulmar

Mute Swan

Gannets

Peregrine

Common Scoter

Sandwich Tern

Barwit and Whimbrel

Mixed flock of Barwit and Whimbrel

Sandwich Tern

Couple of Barwits

Little Egret

 Having been misled by recent warm weather conditions I had forgone my usual thermals and despite wearing several layers by 9AM I was in 3rd stage hypothermia so called it a day!!

Headed home and after a warm up and a bit of brekkie, Margie and I headed over to Knepp to meet up with our friends, however their walk had over run so we did the Yellow walk while we waited,started well with a Cuckoo calling and flying over our heads, scenery is stunning here and there is a lovely Bluebell Wood along the entrance track.

Cuckoo with my usual apologies about the pic, the light, incompetence etc!

Bluebell Wood (phone pic)

Scenery by Margie

Bluebells by Margie

Bluebell by Margie

We followed the path, even I can't get lost especially with Margie's world renown sense of direction😏

Plenty of Whitethroats and Linnets singing from atop the bramble patches and we soon heard the first Nightingale, we must have heard at least six, just on the short time  we walked, we only saw one a brief glimpse as it flew across the path, likewise with the 4 Bullfinches quick glimpses as they darted along the hedges, we heard at least 4 different Cuckoos and of course the Storks impressed with 15 spiralling up at one point! We had resigned ourselves to just getting distant views when some came a lot closer!!

Obviously the usual big animals were present we saw Red Deer, Fallow Deer and some Ponies, I obviously was unperturbed by such beast and strolled casually by them.

Common Whitethroat

Red Kite

Red Deer

Pony

Spiralling Storks

Common Whitethroat

White Stork

Flower by Margie

Scenery by Margie

Pony by Margie

Dandelion Head by Margie

Fallow Stag

Stork on the nest

Showy Kestrel

We finally met up with our friends in the carpark, hurrah!! However after a  4 hour walk around the estate and being of a certain age they decided they didn't want to do anymore birding!! Lightweights😂Although I think Margie and I managed to hide our relief as we were knackered as well😏!!! We headed back down the track to the other carpark where we had parked once again getting excellent views of the Cuckoo!!

Cuckoo

After another rest we went around to where our friends were staying, (they had come to ours the day before, where Margie produced an excellent Lasagne and I knocked out a Coffee and Walnut cake) where they treated us to some of Knepp's finest Venison Burgers and an excellent evening of conversation, Margie's quite good at that sort of thing whereas I'm limited to talking about birds and cake although I did refrain from talking about the mighty Leeds United! Big shout out and thankyou to Bob, Doreen, Bob and Kay for a nice evening, they apparently are avid Blog Readers, (someone has to) although I use the word avid in it's loosest possible sense, I'm surprised anyone reads it, I'm mainly writing it as an aide memoire for when I loose my marbles!!!😁