22 September - Heading South

September is the time for migrants. Large numbers of birds heading South with the added excitement of finding the unusual or rare species thrown in for the lucky few and at the end of the month this is mixed with birds returning the other way for Winter.

So with the Sun also heading South, officially today the other other side of the Equator, and a very light SSW breeze and overcast weather with early mist forecast it looked promising for migrating birds to be held up on the South Coast, which is where I went. The mornings are now closing in much more noticeably with light not really up until approaching 6.45am, I saw a Tawny Owl fly across the road just before Midhurst. and a Buzzard on it's first foray of the morning just past Goodwood, in between dense patches of fog, which made me a little concerned I wouldn't be able to see anything on the coast.

Selsey was first. The tide was way out and the light was very low in still conditions but at least not foggy. 10 Med Gulls were with a selection of Herring, Black-headed, Lesser and Great-black backed Gulls, but the sea was extremely quiet with a handful of distant Gannets, Sandwich Terns, 3 Common Scoter,13 Wigeon and 24 Brent Geese were the first returning Autumn birds  . One observant birder called a Pied Flycatcher which had flown over our heads and landed in the Tamarisks , so we waited patiently for about 45 minutes for it to reappear from the bush, which it never did !, just 4 or 5 Chiffchaffs present. and a steady flow of Swallows numbered over 200 moving SW, with 4 Meadow Pipits and 2 Grey Wagtails.

I went to Church Norton, where the number of hirundines was staggering. Impossible to accurately count but an estimate of 5,000 + birds over the saltmarshes and extending both inland and out to the sea, the vast majority being Swallows but also House Martins and Sand Martins, I tried to capture the sight but failed miserably in the pictures below - Swallows are a nightmare to photgraph in flight !

The Scrub around the churchyard held 2 Spotted Flycatchers, and a large number of Blackaps and Chiffchaffs, with 1 Willow Warbler and  4 Whitethroats.  A female type Marsh Harrier flew the length of the harbour and seemed to continue straight out to sea and there were Dunlin, Redshank, Ringed Plover, Grey Plover, Turnstone, 1 Bar-tailed Godwit, Little Egret, Grey Heron on the mud-flats.

As the morning ended it appeared the activity of the smaller birds was diminishing so I headed inland to the South Downs at North Stoke. All the fields had now been either cut or ploughed, with the managed wildlife field fringes full of seed plants. There were large numbers of hirundines over the hills as far as the eye could see ( must be a mass-movement day). Small flocks of Linnets and Goldfinches were operating between the fields and obviously gathering in numbers for Winter, although I only saw 3 Yellowhammers, the build up of these passerines should prove good for Winter raptors and one field was covered in Meadow Pipits joined by 2 Wheatears. Distantly 4 Red Kites and 5 Buzzards soared, but little else was of note. So a spectacular day for movements of Swallows, but again nothing unusual to spice up the day.

Specs are not Camera dust but  Swallows

Difficult to capture  - just a few of the 000's of Swallows

..... and a few more