Ducks

 An excellent selection of ducks over the last few days at Selsey: Scoter, Velvets, Eider (majestic imho), Mergs, LT Ducks, Wigeon, Teal and Pintail all on the move. With Goosander now on the list as well not been a bad year at all for my favourite species.

The Bill

 

Greater Short-toed Lark & more

 A week in Pembrokeshire, whilst a fabulous family break, was poor for birding: no chats/warblers/migrant birds of any description and just a few Kestrels on the raptor front- not even a Red Kite. Seawatching was slow with the much vaunted Strumble Head (where I was often the only birder-they don't watch daily here...) being ok for Gannets. Kittiwakes and Manx Shearwaters but not a lot else until the final day when a Sooty Shearwater offshore brightened things up.. Other glimmers of interest were a self found Sabine’s Gull after Monday's storm in with the hundreds of Manx at St. Brides, a Storm Petrel offshore later in the week and a Greater Short-toed Lark at Dale airfield. Annoyingly our pelagic was cancelled in dubious circumstances-guess it doesn't  pay enough when you can take boatloads of grockles round Ramsey…Lovely accommodation and all that but the west country booked for next year!

Alpine Swift...not much else!

 Well an Alpine Swift has finally graced the Peninsula being present for a few hours on Ivy Lake last Sunday, grateful as I am for small mercies there really isn't much else going on! Hopefully a run of decent winds will get the sea-passage going which has been poor to say the least and with just a few migrants trickling slowly in it's hard going...spring's over-rated anyway, bring on autumn!!

Wheatears etc

 Not been a bad few days, a cracking SP Black necked Grebe on Ivy, a Little Gull on scrapyard lake plus numerous Wheatears and two LRPs at Medmerry. Next stop hirundines hopefully!

Long-tailed Ducks

 Two Long-tailed Ducks offshore at Selsey over the weekend were the highlight of last week, otherwise deathly quiet...still no Peninsula Red Kite for me..!

Eagle

 Well later rather than sooner, surprisingly given the proximity of the Isle of Wight, a White-tailed Sea Eagle made an appearance at Selsey Bill on Sunday much to the delight of the four observers. Cue the inevitable chorus of  “you can’t tick it you know” from those NOT present!! Still the first one at the Bill since 1961!

Later, the bird flew over Ham and Medmerry heading off north with a corvid/gull retinue.