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.
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| Waxwing |
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| Rock Pipit |
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| Brent Geese |
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| Brent Geese |
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