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:

North Wall

We had a bit of stroll at the North Wall this morning, nothing really of note, a couple of Egyptian Geese at Church Barton and a Chiffchaff here, too, two Marsh Harriers, a cronking Raven (later seen over the Mill Pond) some nice Pintail from the east side and a nice mixed flock of warders. 

I suppose it was nice to be out after the funeral but still not really feeling much like it atm, but tomorrow's another day so hey ho...

Later, an odd report from the data-scrapers (have you noticed how the national bird services never credit their sources...?) of a Red-breasted Goose with c.3000 Brent Geese and two Pale-bellied Brent Geese in the area, I believe they were looked for but without success...I do know if they were there this morning we missed them! UPDATE: well they weren't there but they were in 1986 apparently! A data entry error to blame for today's report, the culprit? well that would be telling lol and no it wasn't me!

Marsh Harrier:

Pintail:

Common Gull and what appears to be a Ruff second left:

West Dean & the Canal

The wife and I went up to Stapleash Farm at West Dean estate on Friday morning while the son was at band rehearsal (just the 26 songs to learn!!) and had a few bits, four displaying Ravens, six Buzzards, two Red Kites, a Hawfinch (possibly more but not certain) and a big flock of mixed finches on the maize crop.

At the Canal on Saturday there were at least a dozen Siskins, probably more as they were well heard before they were seen at the Birdham end. Not a lot else here and at dead low water off the marina all that could be found of note in a brief look were a few Red-breasted Mergansers.

The two White-fronted Geese & the two Egyptian Geese were also still at Oving early on.

Raven:

Siskin: