Tuesday 17th April - Easter catch up

It's been an odd period over the Easter weekend and through last week, the Easter bunny made his normal mess with the wine bottles and then disappeared down a hole. The weather had turned to mainly northerly winds and cold, but sometimes sunny, and since the day that the hosepipe ban was announced as we are officially in drought, we've had a decent amount of rain !

I've made a few early morning trips to Selsey, always with high expectations of seeing the visible migration of the millions of Summer birds migrating to the UK shores interspersed with the occasional rare wanderer....mmmm... The reality of a small trickle of birds with long periods squinting into a flat calm sea has been more reality. Rather than try to recount every last magical   painful moment its probably easiest to list the highlights (it will be quicker !). comments of 'its been a very slow Spring' were reverberating around the group of birders that frequent the 'Bill' - no it's not just me !

Manx Shearwater - 37 were seen on a wet and windy bank holiday 9th April.
Arctic Skua - 1 seen on the  9th
Great Skua   - 3 seen on the 9th
Common Tern - first seen on the 9th - more than 50 on the 14th
Swallow - First seen on 9th - lots since
Sand Martin - 4 on 12th
House Martin - 1 on 12th
Little Gull - 7 on the 14th
Little Tern - first seen 2 on the 12th
Velvet Scoter 9 on 12th, 11 on 14th
Redstart - 1 male off sea on the 12th
Roseate Tern - 1 on 14th
Yellow Wagtail - 2 on 14th

As well as all three Diver species (Great Northern, Black-throated and Red-throated), there was a continuous stream of Meadow Pipits (several hundred). Other passerine migrants included several Willow Warblers, Chiffchaffs, 8 Wheatears, Linnets and Goldfinches and 2 Blackcaps, some of these small birds you can pick up flying towards you a few hundred yards out to see and often they head for the first bush they can see on land. Others such as the pipits fly directly over calling . A Merlin flew in on the 12th.

I also managed a couple of local walks, mainly with the same species as previously beeing seen including the Tree Pipit which was in the same area of cleared pines and had started it's songflighting displays. I saw the Lesser Spotted Woodpecker (female) on one occasion and the Bramblings (up to 12 were in the same area on the 9th but had disappeared by the 15th). A Willow Warbler was heard briefly on the 9th.

Back at home I saw 2 Ravens fly over twice on the 15th, and heard a Cuckoo briefly on the evening of the 12th, the big 'G' bird was seen on the 15th with plenty of Buzzards, Sparrowhawks and a Kestrel... and the Firecrest is still around.

Just hope the weather warms up again soon otherwise the girls will have a shock when the come back from 30c at the weekend,.

Male Crossbill

local Tree Pipit in song  from a distance.

Speckled Wood butterfly in garden,