The Eagle has Landed (albeit at distance!)

 I have up to now had little motivation to go and see the White-tailed Eagles that have been knocking about the Amberley area for a few months, mainly because the pictures I have seen they are always miles away!! Having seen one in Shetland, I don't need them for the year and as released birds from the Isle of Wight they are technically not tickable anyway, although that doesn't usually stop me 😀. However having seen the pictures of them at Pulborough Brooks yesterday, I remembered what awesome looking birds they are and with an excellent weather forecast decided to have a crack at them!! Margie and I set out at about 9.30, with no report from Pulborough decided to check out the Rackham viewpoint where the birds are seen quite often! We arrived about 10am and headed through the woods, as we reached the far edge, we had good views out across the marsh, pretty sure it's Amberley Brooks but not a 100% sure about it! First bird was a Heron posing in the sunshine and a Kestrel sat on a dead tree, good start to the Raptor watching!! Large amounts of Fallow Deer wandering about though sadly distant! We heard their strange roar/bark throughout the visit!!

Grey Heron, catching some rays!

Kestrel

Fallow Deer

View of the Brooks by Margie

And again

We reached the viewpoint, another guy who was there pointed out the Eagles favourite tree, sadly Eagle free😒 We (I) decided to give it half n hour to see if they turned up.( Big shout out to Margie here, for who standing around scanning the same area over and over again is her least favourite form of birding!) Interest was peaked the arrival of a Sparrowhawk that flew in and sat preening in a tree for a while.

The Eagle tree, sans Eagles😢

Fallow Stag, this was about the closest they came!

Distant Raptor on a tree! Peregrine perhaps defo need a scope here!

Sparrowhawk

A Red Kite appeared on a distant gate, I hadn't seen it fly in!!

Red Kite

While I was watching the Red Kite, behind it a bird flew through my Bins!!!!! White-tailed Eagle Hurrah!!!

White-tailed Eagle even at this distance a seriously impressive bird!

There were two birds one landed out of sight on the ground and one flew into the tree!!!

WTE in the favourite tree

Margie got this pic with her superzoom!

With all this excitement the Sparrowhawk upped sticks and flew off!

Sparrowhawk

Red Kite numbers were building up, every time I looked at the gate there was another one!

Still in the tree

Red Kites

Increasing

Pretty sure that's a Kestrel at the very top of the tree!

At this point from right above our heads a Bird of Prey burst out of the canopy!! A Buzzard with a red tail!!! A very red tail!! Turns out as I suspected at the time it was a Red-tailed Hawk!!! An American bird of prey, apparently there has been a bird in this area for a while, seen at Waltham Brooks and Knepp Estate, it is presumed to be an escape although it seemed to be clear of any of the trappings of Falconry!!! Turns out there are no accepted records of genuine vagrant Red-tailed Hawk in the UK!

 Bit of excitement at any rate!!!  We left the viewpoint on the way back, on impulse we crossed the small foot bridge, this brought us out into a more open viewpoint, the original one has large over hanging trees which does restrict the views some what!! I have subsequently found out there is another viewpoint at the top of the hill, who knew!! Well practically everyone it turns out!! However we couldn't be arsed to check it out maybe next time, hopefully my scope will be back from the menders before our next visit!! Anyway at this more open viewpoint we had great view of Red Kites and Buzzards some of which flew right over our heads!!! Made a change from watching small dots in the distance!! We could see the Eagle tree from here though it was further away!! Both birds were now present!

Red Kite

Common Buzzard

What's better than one WTE in a tree, two WTE in a tree !!!

Margie took this picture of the landscape!

She finally found some Mushrooms!!

A very enjoyable couple of hours, we never made it to Pulborough Brooks!! Who'd of thought a few years ago we would be watching Sea Eagles and Red Kites in Sussex!!!!