All week I've been resisting the urge to take a days holiday to go an see the White-Crowned Sparrow that has been down Hope Gap on Seaford Head since last Saturday, this turned out to be a masterstroke, firstly I didn't waste a days holiday and secondly the Sparrow which at the start of it's stay had been showing for a couple of seconds every 4 hours, was now performing like a rock star, mainly down to the unofficial feeding station that has been set up, which I think is a bit dodgy on a nature reserve, wouldn't do it myself, but am hypocritical enough to take full advantage of others efforts!😏😂 I was obviously more relaxed about this bird than I might have been as I saw the one in Norfolk many years ago, though once I had arrived on site at 5.45, I quickly hurried to the spot halfway down the gap, where a small crowd were scanning the bushes. Predictably the bird had been showing well up to thirty seconds before I arrived but had now disappeared, an anxious wait followed, but luckily the bird returned after about 20 minutes and showed well, first briefly in a bush, then on the floor amongst the aforementioned seed! It's an absolute stunner, no offence to our Sparrows but they really need to up their game!!
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| White-Crowned Sparrow |
After a couple of minutes, the bird disappeared back into the thicket and so we waited for it to appear again, plenty of other stuff going on with singing Blackcaps, Chiffchaff, Common Whitethroat, Willow Warbler and more surprisingly a very loud Cetti's Warbler, Plus the local Chaffinches, Greenfinch and Tits, taking advantage of the seed.
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| Blackcap |
The bird, after what seemed like an age, eventually returned, but this time dropped right onto the seed which made pics difficult!
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| Playing hide and seek |
Having been standing on a slope for at least half n hour, my calves were killing me and with more people arriving, there is quite restricted viewing, I decided to give up my place, to nice for my own good😁. It was nice to see, Keith H in the crowd and he joined me for a wander down to Hope Bottom! We couldn't find much down there with just the usual suspects, Linnets, Stonechats, Rock Pipits, Common Whitethroats and Meadow Pipits, at the bottom we scanned the sea, absolutely nothing went past!! My original plan had been, once I'd seen the Bird scoot around to Splash Point and do a bit of Sea-watching, but with zero wind it seemed more beneficial.
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| Stonechat |
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| Meadow Pipit |
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| Linnet |
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| Common Whitethroat |
We reached the Golf Course, with little to excite as we turned North, Keith spotted a Wheatear in the Sheep field, then another, then another, etc, etc we definitely had 12 but there were almost certainly more. They proceeded north as we followed them, before settling in the field opposite the Dungheap, where Keith soon spotted a Whinchat amongst them, then another, then another, he was on fire!!!! I joined in spotting a flyover Yellow Wagtail which landed on the field amongst the Wheatears, we had great views of it through Keith's scope! On the Dungheap itself I found a surprise Corn Bunting, despite there being a population up the coast on Beachy Head, in all my visits over the years to Seaford Head I'd never seen one here, but like buses you wait years for one and with in twenty minutes I'd seen 3!! We had an enjoyable hour or so following these birds up and down the field, we stayed on the path obvs, consequently with the quite dull light and the birds mainly distant, pics were at a premium, but I did me best and for once the dogwalkers going along the edge of the field were a welcomeish sight as they flushed the birds near us and on to the Dung Heap, a few pics below!
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| Rock Pipit on the Dungheap |
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| Wheatear |
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| Whinchat |
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| Whinchat getting a bit closer |
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| Pied Wagtail |
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| Getting a bit closer unfortunately all the flashy males stayed distant😢 |
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| Corn Bunting |
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| Wheatear |
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| Corn Bunting |
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| Whinchat |
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| Wheatear |
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| Sparrowhawk appeared but didn't get any of my Whinchats |
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| Skylark, were loads of these zipping about after each other and bursting into song but on landing they more or less disappeared, which was quite frustrating but I eventually got one, hurrah!! |
Keith had to go shopping, so departed, I decided to go and have a look at Harry's Bush, which was devoid of anything out of the ordinary, as was the bottom path leading to the Cuckmere, a big herd of cows was sadly devoid of Yellow Wagtails. I decided to walk back along the cliff and have ago at second helpings of the Sparrow, at this point I bumped into Richard A and his crew, one of the select few who actually read the blog, or so he claims!! This was fortuitous as they could actually ID birds by their song, which gave me my first Lesser Whitethroat of the year, thanks guys, although typically skulky I got no pics, we also ran into some more Whinchats, although they may have been the same ones I'd seen early relocated as it wasn't far as the Whinchat flies!
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| Goldfinch |
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| Common Whitethroat, loads of these everywhere! |
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| Obligatory Belle Tout pic! |
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| Linnet |
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| Wren |
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| Flyover Mute Swan |
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| Stonechat |
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| Whinchat |
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| Meadow Pipit |
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| Fulmar, about the only seabird I saw today! |
I headed back to Hope Gap, the crowd had thinned out a bit now, once again the bird had disappeared as I turned the corner, but it soon appeared again showing even better than earlier!
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| Common Whitethroat |
Once it disappeared again I headed off the walk back up the hill and back to the car was once again full of Whitethroats but I restrained myself you will be glad to know!
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| Blackbird |
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| A good old House Sparrow, they will still be here to entertain, when the flashy American is long gone😍 |
So a pretty good morning, The Sparrow was obviously the star but great to see Whinchats in their Spring finery!! There were at least 5five today although others said they had seen at least seven, nice to see a good amount of Wheatears, I would say at least twenty but probably more and three Corn Buntings always a favourite!!!
There has been a bit of chat on Facebook about bad behaviour and the bird being disturbed. All I can say is while I was there everyone remained a respectable distance away and the bird behaved in a natural way (as far as any bird can be natural coming to seed) coming and going at leisure and I didn't see it spook once.!
