Sunday 11th November - Saturday Jinx

This week a Hooded Merganser had been seen at Pagham. A sawbill diving duck, in the wild they breed in North America (Note that I reservedly say 'in the wild').  I'd seen plenty on both trips to Canada frequenting inland lakes and generally in the company of other North American Duck species such as Buffleheads, Lesser Scaup etc. Genuine wild birds are a rarity in the UK, although sorting out the genuine wild from the friendly captive bred or collection birds that have escaped is problematic. I had seen a male bird at Radipole in 2009, but without much analysis the fact it was trying to mate with a Tufted Duck and was first to the bread suggested quite strongly it had never attempted an Atlantic crossing. The Pagham bird was reported as an unringed 1st Winter female with all flight feathers intact, which slightly increased it's chances of being the genuine article, either way it was worth a look.

So first thing Saturday I headed to Pagham in the rain (which didn't stop while I was there). The familiar Saturday morning feeling of another bird disappearing on Friday night soon started to sink in as there was no sign of the Merganser as the high tide started to recede and it wasn't seen for the rest of the day. Compensation was a Black Brant in the Brent Goose flock, A large wader count with 3 Spotted Redshank, c300 Golden Plover, Grey Plover, Dunlin, Redshank  Black tailed Godwit, Bar-tailed Godwit, Curlew, Snipe, Dunlin, Turnstone, Lapwing . Duck were well represented with Teal, Wigeon, Shelduck and Pintail in decent numbers and a Med Gull was with a small group of roosting gulls. A Kingfisher flew over the North Wall, Also seen,  Grey Wagtail, Reed Bunting and Meadow Pipit, with a presumed calling Water Pipit that flew over. I headed home late morning and it looked as if it was about to stop raining, which it did after  lunchtime, which worked well for the impressive  Firework display at the girls' school on Saturday night.

Sunday morning I was out again first thing for another morning, my plan was a seawatch at Selsey then to head inland to the downs to look for raptors as the forecast was more favourable.

I wasn't expecting a huge haul of birds on the sea, but faired better than expected. It was a bright sunny and unexpectedly warm morning. A fairly large flock of Common Scoter were just offshore - probably numbering 75+ in various groups. They were nearly all females apart from a male Velvet Scoter , also 2 female Eider on the sea. There was three fairly distant flocks of Little Gulls that totalled 65 birds with a few passing Kittiwake and Gannet. 2 Red-throated Divers flew East and several Auks moved at a distance with only one Guillemot close enough for a definitive ID. Then news came through that the Merganser was seen back at Pagham - well I had to.

and yes it was there, on arrival the Hodded Merganser spent time continuously diving and feeding in a channel close to the footpath and then flying to the harbour until it eventually disappeared nito a creek. It's difficult to add to the debate about it's wild credentials other than it was free-flying and happily feeding on small fish, it was also quite vocal with a single frog-like croak being heard repeatedly, which a few of the local comedians decided the 'croak' translated  to the bird saying 'bread'. I spent a while in the area, as it was very pleasant in the sunshine, chatting to several others. The Black Brant was present again, as was a Spotted Redshank, In addition to yesterdays birds. a Greenshank and a Stonechat were seen. My diversion back to the North Wall meant the trip to the downs was put on hold so I headed home for a relaxing afternoon.



Hooded Merganser