Migrants...

It has been pretty hard going at Selsey Bill over the past few weeks with little passage movement apparent. The Brent Geese seemed to have all moved off and the expected Sandwich Tern and duck species haven't materialised-sadly the dreaded phrase "it's still not happening" is ringing true a bit at the moment! That said I did luck into a few bits on the 27th March: a close Manx Shearwater, a Great Skua, a Fulmar and a Swallow all making an appearance, plus a distant duck that could well have been a Garganey but just a bit too far out to be 100% on that. A Short-eared Owl picked up by PB heading in-off was probably the best bird of the spring so far here, along with a couple of Red Kites and a pair of Ravens that paid short visits to the Bill tip.

Of "landbirds", I have struggled to add Little Ringed Plover to the Peninsula year list but was fortunate enough to eventually catch up with a displaying pair at Medmerry Stilt Pool; also mananged Blackcap and a Willow Warbler near the Ferry Pool and no less than two Wheatears at the Bill! At home we have three singing Blackcaps currently (I can hear one as I type this) and singing Chiffchaffs so hopefully they will all breed successfully here again this year.

The Red-crested Pochards were reported back on the Whyke fishing lakes on Friday but annoyingly the footpath here is still gated. I appreciate the reasoning behind this (fish theft) but it is actually illegal to block paths in this manner and with parking restrictions now being implemented at the Ivy Lake complex it's not looking good access-wise to the lakes for the casual birder. Parking is still available, for the time being anyway, opposite the Free School but as a parent here I say good luck with that in term-time! I suppose parking at Whyke and taking the footbridge over might be the best option going forward. The only thing of note here for me recently though were the pair of Egyptian Geese on the house lawn replete with ducklings.

A Lesser Black-backed Gull was on the roof of Covers builders merchants opposite the Whyke Lakes on Saturday and the gentle Mediterranean Gull passage continued over Oving all week.

Short-eared Owl in at the Bill:

Little Ringed Plover:

Lesser Black-backed Gull:

Egyptian Geese:

Wheatear at the Bill:

Toe End

The best at Selsey Bill this morning, despite hopeful conditions, were seven Great Northern Divers offshore and a few Common Scoter-obviously the best is still to come here!

A bike ride down from coastguards to Toe End didn't turn much up either, the best being eight Sanderling near the sea defences, a few Meadow Pipits and an adult Lesser Black-backed Gull with a few Great Black-backed Gulls on the mud.

Whooper Swans, Great Skua & Grey Partridges

Six excellent Whooper Swans were in White's Creek on Tuesday, well found by LP in White's Creek at Pagham North Wall, two years running for these now after a long barren period on the Selsey peninsula.

On Friday a distant Great Skua (Bonxie) was the highlight, picked up by SH heading west. More intriguing, however, was a distant bird moving across the horizon in large arcs...we were sure it wasn't a juvenile Gannet and skuas were ruled out which only really left a shearwater of some kind (or Giant Petrel of course lol) but we shall, sadly, never know...these are the ones that really bug me!

Declining a first-of-the-year Wheatear twitch at Church Norton on Saturday I headed over to Itchenor for yet another go for the partridges, this time successfully: two Grey Partridges in the Horse Pond field & two Red-legged Partridges in Rookwood Lane. The best on the water in the harbour were a few lingering Brent Geese and two Great Crested Grebes.

Over the farm today (Saturday) were at least 40 Mediterranean Gulls. We do get good numbers of these passing through in the spring so I suspect this is just the first wave.

Whooper Swans:

Grey Partridges: (they did actually show better than these pics suggest, they were spooked by a couple of runners and their pets and hunkered down).

Selsey Bill & Ruddy Shelduck

There wasn't much at the Bill this morning other than 26 Curlew and four Whimbrel. Later in the day a Ruddy Shelduck was at Honer 1 (found by Mike James) and I managed a five second view of it flying away over the trees, very unsatisfactory but hopefully it will be refound for a better look! Update: AW had it in off the sea at the windmill on Friday so hopefully it'll stick in the area.

At look around Honer Reservoir & Marsh Farm didn't turn the above up but there were 78 Cattle Egrets at Bramber Farm and two Egyptian Geese were with half a dozen Shelduck near Summer Lane.

The Bill & Itchenor

It was nice to see the regulars at Selsey Bill this morning in my first proper visit for over a month due to circumstances...unfortunately it was rather quiet but a Red Kite over north (or east if you're AH lol) was a good bird, as was a Raven that I missed. A Blackcap in the bushes (missed that too) and a few Chiffs and Mipits were the best of any migration whilst on the sea a Black-throated Diver and a few Great Northerns were the highlights.

Afterwards I went to Itchenor where I had partridges...only problem was that they were Red-legged Partridges not Grey ones! Did have a cream-capped Marsh Harrier (a migrant maybe? bit of an odd place for one?) and a few Brent Geese and small birds but nothing else really of note. The camera struggled today in the gloom but a couple of pastiches (cough) are below!

Red Kite at the Bill:

Marsh Harrier:

Itchenor

The Black-throated Diver was still offshore from Itchenor this morning along with two Great Northern Divers and plenty of displaying Red-breasted Mergansers but I couldn't find the Grey Partridges in the rainy conditions. An interesting pipit sp. towards Ella Nore sounded very like a Water Pipit to me and Merlin concurred FWIW but inconclusive on chirpity sadly.

Black-throated Diver:

Great Northern Diver:

Brent Geese:

Red-breasted Mergansers:

Long Down & Sand Martins

We had to drop a van into the garage this morning so went up to Long Down hill afterwards, this is sort of above Eartham to give you an idea. Last time it was fog-bound but today there were excellent views across to the downs, Chichester & villages and even the offshore windfarms. Some of the habitat looks spot on for Honey-Buzzard later in the year but today we had plenty of Common Buzzards, a few Red Kites, Yellowhammers and Skylarks. Very much an underwatched area this with also plenty of wet woodland and numerous hilltop copses which today held numerous Tit flocks-looks good for Woodcock here too.

Later in the day we went to the Chichester Gravel Pits where Colin Jupp had found at least four Sand Martins, nice to see the first "proper" migrants of the year!

Skylark, note rarity: blue sky!:

Yellowhammers:

The view from Long Down:

Sand Martin: