Seaford Wander

 Hard slog around Seaford Head and the west side of the Cuckmere, this morning! Started well with 4 Wheatears on the dung heap and at least 2 Whinchats in the Bird food crop. Very gloomy this morning so pics are not that great!

Whinchat

Wheatear

Meadow Pipit

Stonechat

Sky got a bit funky!

So a good start but went down hill after that! Did the loop along the Golf Course to Hope Gap without seeing much. I didn't see a single Goldfinch, Linnet, Skylark or Rock pipit today possibly for the first time ever on this site!! Hopefully down to my incompetence rather than a more serious problem. there were some ringers at the bottom of Hope Gap, they had caught 30 plus Blackcaps, I saw two!! Shows how well they can hide in the bushes!!

I headed up the Cuckmere, this was  equally as bad except this time I was wading through mud!! The recent heavy rain has left the path by the river as a quagmire! I did see another Wheatear on the other side of the river and a couple of Greenshank being the highlights.

A Lone Lapwing, saw 4 Redshank as well

Greenshank

Little Egret

At this point, miraculously still vertical, a jogger going the other way informed me that the path improved further on, this decided me to do the loop rather than retrace my steps. It was a fortuitous meeting as things improved, not greatly but a few Chiffchaffs, couple of Blackcaps, a Whitethroat and the arse end of what might have been a Garden Warbler, the path became more solid, as I headed back towards the beach a movement caught my eye in the large hedge, a Wryneck!!!! Right out in the open, although by the time I got myself sorted it had buried itself in the hedge. Usually when I've seen Wrynecks they are in scrubby stuff and if you hang around long enough you get clear views, this was  a massive hedge with mature trees in it, eventually though the bird made a couple of forays into the high branches and on one of them I managed some pics!! Manual focus so not that sharp but you can tell what it is!

Meadow Pipit

Robin

Wryneck

Stonechat

After that burst of excitement, things went downhill again, Harry's Bush was quiet and I wandered the scrub beyond, I did find another  Whinchat, but it disappeared pretty quick, even the Diver I spotted distantly on the sea turned out to be a Cormorant stretching it's neck!!

Chiffchaff

Whinchat

Stonechat

Peregrine flew past at long distance

So five hours, 16000 steps for about 20mins of action, oh well, the Wryneck made it worth the walk!!! Think it's my first self-found one!!!