Before Christmas I had a very nice day at West Rise Marsh, with the Beardies and Penduline Tits and with both reported again during the week, Margie and I thought we would visit again. Things started well as I was sorting out the camera in the living room, our regular male Sparrowhawk landed on the fence and I was able to grab a few shots, bonus!!
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| Through the window unfortunately, so not as sharp as I would like but an impressive bird! |
We arrived in Eastbourne, the weather seemed nice enough as we exited the car, but on the marsh itself there was a very cold and strong wind! We had a quick scan of the lake, but all we could find was a single Great Crested Grebe, a couple of Gadwall and in the shelter of some reeds some Tufted Ducks which were very much asleep, there was also a large flock of Gulls but they were right over the far side so couldn't pick anything interesting out with my bins!
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| Sign of spring in the car park, some nice blossom |
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| Sleeping Tufties |
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| Great Crested Grebe |
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| Margie got the Grebe in a sensible pose |
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| Pic by Margie showing the proximity of the houses to the marsh |
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| Another one of Margie's landscapes |
We headed around to the Pagoda, the Reedbed was pretty quiet, though the occasional Cetti's Warbler was giving it large as were a couple of Wrens, brief views of a Kingfisher and a Stonechat on a post the best of it!
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| I do like the way the light goes through the reeds! |
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| Wren |
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| Mute Swan |
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| Stonechat |
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| The Reedmace remained stubbornly Penduline less while we were there😢 |
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| Ditch by Margie |
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| Langley Sewer by Margie |
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| Pagoda by Margie, this path was up to the top of my wellies in water last time I was here so the water levels have dropped a lot! |
We gave it 10 minutes at the Pagoda without success though a Sparrowhawk had a fly over during which it got extreme harassment from a crow, which was entertaining for us if not the Sprawk!
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| Sparrowhawk |
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| Incoming Crow! |
We gave up and wandered on, entertaining ourselves with pictures of the reeds, a Pied Wagtail showed well. Then bird of the day appeared a Dartford Warbler!!! Which was bit of a surprise, was in the tussocky Grass, I had good views in the bins and the shape and call are pretty unmistakeable but couldn't get a pic as flitted from one tussock to the next before disappearing completely😢But nice to see!!
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| Pied Wagtail |
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| Little Egret |
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| Canada Goose by Margie. were several in the field the other side of the river |
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| Margie's go at the Reeds and more of her pics below! |
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| Dartford Warble was in here!!! |
I gave up on the Dartford and we headed around the lake, 3 Pintail were nice and the large flock of Gulls was closer, I scanned it a lot, but couldn't pic out anything special, though a couple of Lesser Black-backed Gulls were my first of the year!
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| Pintails |
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| Herring Gulls |
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| Gull melee! |
We bumped into another couple of birders and whilst exchanging pleasantries, I managed to spot a distant Marsh Harrier, which showed ok but distant, was hard to get a focused shot against the background clutter!
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| Marsh Harrier, I think a female, was very dark and head seemed a bit orangy still so maybe a 1st winter! |
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| Female Pochard getting an eyefull from a Tuftie!! |
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| She didn't seem that impressed |
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| The Male Pochard ignored him as well!! |
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| Marsh Harrier |
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| Tuftie having a bad hair day! |
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| That's better!! |
So not a bad wander around, pretty cold especially when the Sun went in, no luck with the Pen Tits or Beardies but think the strong wind was against us!! It was nice and quiet with only a couple of dogwalkers and a couple of other birders which is always good!!!
