Windy in Newhaven!!

 Not a consequence of my Sprout heavy xmas,😱😂but the weather on the South Coast today!! With heavy showers and a strong wind forecast a good bet is west beach Newhaven. Not just for the spectacular waves crashing on the harbour arm and lighthouse, but there are usually a few Fulmars knocking about and the Rock Pipits are usually quite posy and you can easily dive into the car if it rains😂!!! The sea was very rough and there were plenty of good waves and loads of Fulmars!! The car park had a few Rock Pipits flying about calling, a flock of House Sparrows and a single Turnstone roosting during the very high tide I scanned the pier across the river, another couple of Turnstones but no sign of any Purple Sandpipers😢 Lots of Gulls flying about but the one I thought might be a Caspian wasn't😢 and all the rest were either Herring Gulls or Black-headed Gulls a couple of which had the start of breeding plumage!

The first few pics are by Margie

Quite rough in the harbour 

The Harbour wall taking a battering

The light is really interesting in these pics by Margie

Some huge waves

Next few pics are by me, concentrating on the birds but also some of the very large waves!

Nice to see the Fulmars flying along the cliffs but it's over the waves where they are in their element

Fulmar

Blue Sky!!! Hoorah!

House Sparrow

Turnstone

Probably another Herring Gull! In their element, floating on the wind!

We took a short walk up the beach, couple of Stonechats, some roosting Oystercatchers, a pair of Ravens showed exceptionally well, as did numerous Rock Pipits, I spent sometime staring out to sea, no scope but I picked out a couple of distant Gannets and one flock of 5 Red-throated Divers sadly distant but surprisingly got a pic of 3 of em!

Margie obviously ignored all the seabirds and got some pictures of beach stuff!

Some sort (Goose?) Barnacles attached to a bottle of dubious looking liquid!

The cliffs by Margie

And again

I concentrated on the birds again!

Stonechat

Difficult to resist taking pics of the Lighthouse getting pummelled, few Gulls in the pics as well 

Fulmar over the sea, there were loads just of shore seemingly enjoying the conditions

Very distant Red-throated Divers

Distant Gannet with a couple of Auks underneath, possibly Razorbills to distant to be %100

Gulls over a rough sea

some huge waves out there

Lighthouse? What Lighthouse?

Raven

Black-headed Gull

Fulmar

Rock Pipit

The Raven giving the Fulmars a run for their money on the mastery of the wind front

Fulmars difficult to resist as they glide just above you!

Rock Pipit, there were at least eight along the cliffs could easily be a lot more

Final bird was an extremely small, male Kestrel

A cracking couple of hours, love to be on the coast, in the sun and wind and nice to get Red-throated Diver on the list and considering I've not had a proper days birding yet I've done well to get up to 59 for the year!!