I had been aware that there was a Desert Wheatear at Beachy for a few days, I fully expected it to do the usual and disappear the moment I could go for it. Normally I would have attempted to get there at first light, but with a terrible weather forecast I decided to wait for news, this had the added advantage of allowing me to knock up a quick Chocolate Fridge Cake!! News duly came and it wasn't raining so I headed off! I drove through about 20 different grades of rain, but arrived at Belle Tout and it was dry!! Hurrah!! In the car park, I could hear a Corn Bunting singing, but no time for that I was up the slope like a young Gazelle. Thirty seconds later my lungs reminded me I'm not a young Gazelle anymore and that attempting to run up a steep slope was not allowed!! I eventually recovered my breath and headed on to Belle Tout where the Desert Wheatear showed like a star!! Running around on the grass and then hopping up onto the wall around the lighthouse and posing well!!
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| Belle Tout |
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| Desert Wheatear |
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| Dropped into the Garden |
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| Popped up onto the wall about 10 feet away |
Luckily, for my camera, the bird flew to the cliff edge, so I decided to have a wander to see what else I could find. Other birders had reported seeing some Dartford Warblers, I eventually found a couple but the buggers are a pain to get pics of!! Lots of Robins, Dunnocks, Blackbirds and Wrens about the place, several Meadow Pipits, flocks of Finches flying about and a large number of Woodpigeons in the surrounding area and flying over! There were also a few Stonechats knocking about and a couple of Pied Wagtails running around the grass!
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| Blackbird |
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| Raven |
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| Robin |
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| Pied Wagtail |
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| Stonechat with no tail |
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| Stonechat with a tail |
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| Cracking picture of Gorse, With Dartford Warbler in the background |
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| Think I captured the spikes well!😢 |
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| Stonechat |
I decided to give up on Dartford Warbler photography and headed back to have another go at the Desert Wheatear to get my confidence back! It's such a confiding bird, completely oblivious to the tourists wandering about, at one point as I was squatting about 20 feet away from it, watching it feeding, it just headed straight towards me, I had serious concerns it was going to perch on my head and use me as a look out to catch the insects it was chomping on!! Luckily it stopped short then chased an unlucky bug towards the cliff!! I won't go into a to graphic description of me trying to stand back up again, just that there was a lot of creaking and groaning and that was just from my knees!😢😱😰😂
Superb stuff! With the weather looking like it was closing in I decided to head home, unfortunately the Beachy Head Marathon was now in full swing and the traffic through the Cuckmere area was carnage, though it has to be said that maybe if some of the Twats on the other side of the road who were leaving large gaps between themselves and the car in front of the them in the queue had closed those gaps then maybe the traffic lights at the bridge wouldn't have got quite so snarled up!!! FFS get off ya phones and have some consideration for people behind you!!!!!!! 😡😡😡😡😡 Though probably had they looked up from their phones they might have lip read the names I was calling them at which point it could of got interesting!!😱😱😱😂
Still despite the traffic a very enjoyable and successful trip and I was able to reward myself with a piece of the now ready Chocolate Fridge Cake, which was very tasty!
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| Fridge Cake, different recipe to my usual, very tasty with Glace Cherries and Brazil Nuts for added sophistication! |
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