Monday 31 December - Christmas Trimmings

... a belated happy xmas to all and good luck for 2013.

The last couple of weeks have been a mixture of ham, anitbiotics and more ham. The inevitable happened, working hard until xmas, then succumbing to a seasonal virus, which wiped me out for the last few days.

Gary and Jenny visited on Saturday with their boys, so Gary and I decided to go out birding for a couple of hours on Sunday morning before everyone else surfaced. Luckily it was a rare dry morning, we headed down to Fishbourne Creek. On route, Gary managed to perform what is becoming his Winter party trick and called 'Waxwing'  as we drove past the Goodwood motor circuit. I swung the car around and sure enough a single Waxwing was at the top of  tree and had found some berries in the roadside bushes, we took a few quick pictures then left it to feed.

The roads were still flooded as was the path from the Apuldram church on the way out to the creek.

A couple of Redwing were in the churchyard bushes, and the wind certainly picked up as we arrived next to the channel. A few Brent Geese, Wigeon and Redshank were in the channel and we noticed a single birder further up walking through the wet vegetation, flushing what appeared to be Snipe, when we caught up with him latter he said it was a Jack Snipe.

The river feeding the creek from the waterworks was seriously overflowing and normally the area where it enters the creek holds the most waders, but the wader count was fairly low with a few Turnstone, only one or two Dunlin groups of Curlew on the far shore and a handful of Lapwing. a Rock Pipit and a few meadow pipit were near the footpath with a couple of Grey Wagtail. The Brent Geese started to move as the tide rose and a couple of male Goldeneye were in the channel. We walked out to the area we had seen the birder flush the Snipe and before too long a Jack Snipe was flushed.

We headed home and did a circular  walk  before a late lunch, birds were a little thin on the ground but a couple of Bullfinch, a calling Marsh Tit, 2 Buzzard and a single female Reed Bunting was the first I'd seen in the area.

Waxwing

Rock Pipit

Brent Geese

Brent Geese

Saturday 10th December - Cold beginnnings

A cold and frosty start coupled with a heavy and long working week resulted in some extra duvet time this morning, but when the frost had cleared I headed out in bright sunshine and up to the downs again. (mainly because if I headed towards Chichester I would have been stuck in Christmas shopper traffic).

Astonishingly, I haven't seen a Fieldfare yet this winter, (I normally clock my first ones either the end of September or start of October) and feel like I must have been walking round with my eyes shut. Today's thrushes didn't fix it, with lots of Blackbirds, Song Thrush, Redwing and Mistle Thrush but still no Fieldfare !.

In the arable fields many of the birds were as per a couple of weeks ago with a a large finch gathering of Reed Buntings, Linnets, Yellowhammers, Chaffinch, Goldfinch and a single Brambling, meadow Pipit and Skylark, but no Corn Buntings. plenty of Grey Partridge flocks, proving that they are leaving these birds alone on the shoots.

A ringtail Hen Harrier was a brief viewing as a quartered along a hedgerow on the brow of a hill to disappear the other side. At least 6 Buzzards, 4 Red Kites and 3 Kestrels were the other birds of prey on offer.

I moved onto Rackham overlooking Amberley Wildbrooks. A large flock of Canada and Greylag Geese didn't hold any wild interlopers and several hundred Lapwing were scattered over the grazing meadows. c300 Wigeon, 50 Teal, 10 Pintail, 25 Shoveler and c40 Black-tailed Godwit boosted the wildfowl numbers but despite a good search for an hour or so, nothing else of significant interest.

I moved on again to Waltham Brooks, just being able to negotiate the footpaths with wellingtons as there was still a considerable amount of standing water. A pair of Stonechats were on the first part of the path and a squealing Water Rail suddenly took flight then fell back to earth after realising they  don't normally do much flying. A single Lesser Redpoll was with some Goldfinches in an Alder, but again little else was showing. I crossed the railway line to the sewage works and the bushes held 4 Chiffchaffs, Firecrest and 6 Goldcrest and a Long-tailed Tit flock. I probably wasn't there late enough to wait for a Barn Owl, although the light was starting to fade around 3pm.

Not much to report at home either where if anything the increasing cold has temporarily reduced the number of birds at the feeders although at first light there seems to be the equivalent of a Blackbird Lek under the bird table with 8 males this morning. No Brambling this weekend although I saw 1 briefly a week ago. A single Siskin and a Bullfinch were probably the most interesting although a flock of 8 birds flying over were probable Yellowhamers but were too brief and distant to be certain which is a shame as it would have been another house tick.

male Reed bunting

Waltham Brooks

Chiffchaff

Firecrest

A different Chiffchaff

again

teal