Grey Phalarope & LIttle Stints

The seawatching has been poor really, surprising given the strength and direction, SW F6-7, of the wind but there's always a chance something like a Grey Phalarope will be blown in and so it proved when one was was well found by JBo late morning on the Ferry Pool; he's only a young chap so fair play to him for spotting and IDing it, put the olds to shame so it did!

Always a little distant for photos the bird spent its time on the left hand side out of the strong breeze-hopefully it might stay and come down to the road end.

Grey Phalarope:

The pool has also hosted a pair of Little Stints recently which did show nice and close and were a popular attraction for many.

Little Stints:

Nothing to do with the above but I was sad to hear of the passing of Joe Harkness recently. Joe was a nice guy who had had his battles with depression and mental health over the years and who was the author of, among other works, Neurodivergent by Nature, a book discussing neurodivergence (something we know a fair bit about in this household...) and it's role(s) in conservation. 

I hope he is at peace now.

Cory's Shearwaters

Cory's Shearwater is a prized bird at the Bill and on Friday two were picked up by AH inside the Mile Basket heading west in leisurely fashion-interestingly I was sure I had another one early on but these really are the type of birds you need (at least) two observers for at the Bill!!! 

Otherwise there was a big westward movement of gulls and terns & a couple of Arctic Skuas whilst the next day brought even more Mediterranean Gulls past, 1300+, and a nice juvenile Little Gull. A look at the Severals didn't find a Wryneck again but on Saturday at least there were a few more birds around including a couple of Whinchats, two Wheatears on the beach and some young Peregrines scrapping overhead.

My log from Friday below (in the Selsey Blog order not the taxonomic one):

0600-1000hrs) (SW, F7)

Great Crested Grebe - 1os

Cory's Shearwater - 2W (0746hrs)

Gannet - 5E, 247W, 31os

Oystercatcher - 4W

Ringed Plover - 2W

Sanderling - 2E

Turnstone - 61

Arctic Skua - 2W

Mediterranean Gull - 139W

Black-headed Gull - 649W

Common Gull - 8W, 1os

Lesser Black-backed Gull - 5W

Great Black-backed Gull - 6W, 3os

Sandwich Tern - 8E, 728W, 20os

Common Tern - 3E, 154W

Little Tern - 1W

Black Tern - 3W

Swallow - 19W

House Martin - 5

Chicken-of-the-Woods

Surprised and indeed lucky to find this Sulphur Polypore (aka Chicken-of-the-Woods) on the water meadow oaks.

Puffin & Five-bearded Rockling

I've been lucky enough to see a few Puffins off Selsey Bill in past years and it was good to catch up with one on Sunday, a reasonably close bird heading west then east and west again inside and adjacent to the Mile Basket. A few Black Terns were also about and a Tree Pipit flew over the Oval Field.

At home the veg has perked up a bit after the rain and we're getting prepped to plant a lot of over-wintering onion sets to fill in any gaps left by the previously boiling conditions. Not much of note birdwise here but a Tree Pipit flew over and there seems to have been an uptick in finches. 

Also confirmed in the last few days was a Five-bearded Rockling which we had at Marloe Sands while on holiday, another fish mini-species for us.

Five-bearded Rockling pic by @beardybirder.bsky.social to give you an idea of what they're like, our one was a bit too quick for me to get a picture of!

Serin

I sound recorded a Serin flying in-off/over at Selsey Bill on Friday but to be honest only caught the merest hint of a call myself so unfortuntaley one that got away, a shame as had it been elsewhere on the Peninsula it would no doubt have created more interest...nice to see Surrey Bird Club out at Grafton Road and it was a reminder from their enthusiam that "basic" seawatching can indeed, and whisper it quietly, be FUN!

On Saturday morning no interesting birds were pushed through with the weather front (yes it has rained properly at last) although there were decent numbers of Lesser Black-backed Gulls and Mediterranean Gulls on the move and a distant shearwater sp. was just that...very distant!!

A look at the Severals on Friday PM was remarkable for its blandness but perhaps some of the keener birders can turn up a Wryneck there, September 5th is the most reliable date I think so we shall see, hopefully a nice showy one and not a single observer special is on the cards.

Pied Flycatcher & Pembrokeshire

 A Pied Flycatcher was a nice find for me at Halsey's Farm on Friday before we left for Pembrokeshire, a welcome year tick for "a right place-right time" species. At Pagham there were a couple each of Painted Lady and Clouded Yellow, the latter a surprisingly late year tick given the influx this year..no Long-tailed Blues though perhaps because the Everlasting Pea is on it's last legs due to the drought.

In Pembrokeshire the first bird I found as we got out of the car was bizarrely another Pied Flycatcher and later on we had a couple of Clouded Yellows..deja vu indeed! Rock Pipits a plenty at Marlowe and two cronking Ravens gave a marvellous low flyover, nice lot of Banded Agate on the beach too.

A boat trip to Grassholm was fun and we managed to tick off Minke Whale and Common Dolphin, also plenty of Manx Shearwaters out there, a good mix of adult & juvenile Kittiwakes and, of course, thousands of Gannets now fully recovered from avian flu.

Fishing for mini species has been hard going due to the shear number of people mooching around the jetties but we did manage a good haul of Sand Smelt on the size 16 lures as well as a decent mix of crab sp. and a bucket full of Netted Dog Whelks. A Tub Gurnard (it went back fine btw) on the lures was a bonus today and had a chase from a couple of Mackerel but no connection alas! A Bass was nice from Dale Point and some hard-biting Ballan & Corkwing Wrasse were off the rocks at St. Bride's Bay.

Tub Gurnard:

Wall, rather a worn one: 

St. Bride's Bay from St. Bride's Castle where we stayed:

Corkwing Wrasse, safely returned:

A few migrants and breeding success!

Well I see the genie is now out of the bottle and the existence of the breeding Zitting Cisticolas at Walberswick can be publicly confirmed (although is there anyone who thought they weren't? 🤣)

 I saw and heard at least three there a week or two ago having waited a whole year to see them after they were discovered, or news put out out anyway, on the day we left Southwold in 2025!

In the local area a walk down Sidlesham Quay after veg box delivery found a Spotted Flycatcher and a Garden Warbler in a mixed flock by the stone wall at Owl Point; other than a mixed Tit flock at Church Norton there was nothing of note there and two Black-tailed Godwits were all she wrote at Mill Lane Marsh.

Update: a couple more walks down the quay found a flock of Yellowhammers, scarce here, a Sedge Warbler, fly-over Tree Pipit & Green Sandpiper, a Lesser Whitethroat and an increase in Willow Warblers and about a zillion Whitethroats.