Puffin & Little Owl

 Two good birds today: a Puffin at the Bill & a Little Owl at North Wall. Surprisingly, over the last few years I have seen more of the former than the latter which tells its own tale of the decline of Little Owls in the area...

Merlin

A look at the Medmerry trail was productive this morning with literally the first bird spotted being a Raven with the other highlight a flyby Merlin, both nice additions to the year list. At the Ferry, the Long tailed Duck was asleep on the far bank, still a hood deal closer than the ones at the Bill!

Patchwork

 A few good birds around Oving recently including up to 12 Cattle Egrets in the Drayton area, a large flock of Fieldfares at Woodhorn Farm and, the piece de resistance, a garden tick of two flyover Egyptian Geese! Last night a hooting Tawny Owl was also good to hear!

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!!