Paul Matson's Birding Blog: Tuesday 3rd December

Twice in the last week I've managed the same birding itinerary, with the weekend taken up by tree felling, and leaf sweeping, my reduced work pressure has allowed some longed-for spare time during the week.
On the 26th of November I went early to Selsey where dawn broke to a day of bright blue skies, after about an hour the amount of glare on the sea was prohibitive. The first 2 birds seen were surprising for the time of year, a Little Gull and a Sandwich Tern, both patrolling together before flying off East. 4 Great Northern Divers were on the sea, 3 Red-throated Divers flew East and a flock of 40 female Common Scoters were present and a single Sanderling on the beach. I headed to Church Norton where 4 Long-tailed Ducks had been seen at the weekend. With the tide pretty much fully out, birds on the sea were distant and no sign of the Long-tailed Ducks, but 20 Slavonian Grebes were impressive and 14 Eiders mixing with the usual flock of Red-breasted Mergansers.

I then headed to Medmerry. It is a new RSPB reserve in the making, where they have purposely breached the sea defences to flood what was the old Selsey West Fields in order to alleviate the pressure on the tidal attack of the coast nearer the peninsula where there are more houses (a mistake in hindsight in the 70's and 80's building so many houses on a piece of land being eroded by the sea !), and even though it is now under RSPB ownership the construction is still going on, but it maybe pretty good for birds in the future . The main issue appears to be access - it was a bugger to find a way in - despite being fairly obvious on the map - the only route in was through the massive caravan park, which has gated access to prevent non-residents entering - luckily being midweek and off-season the barriers were raised, so I drove through through the maze of caravans to the other end of the site, parked and walked along the beach to the breach wall. I walked through the rather derelict area of rubble, where 5 Snow Buntings had been seen - which was the purpose of the visit - I found a single Snow Bunting creeping around, as his mates appeared to have gone, there were also 3 Stonechats present , I couldn't have a good look at the newly created pools as there were men working on the bund which you would have to enter to view - one for the future.

Today (Tuesday 3rd), with the Long-tailed ducks still being reported off Church Norton I headed again to the coast. This time it was grey and murky, the sky and sea being the same colour and blending into one, with little wind and around 5c .

I started at Selsey, 2 Chiffchaffs were calling from the tamarisks when I arrived and a small bird of prey shot through, which I only caught a glimpse before it headed over the houses but was probably a Merlin. A good count of 8 Great Northern Divers were on the sea, 3 Slavonian Grebes and 15 Common Scoter with 2 Velvet Scoter which landed briefly then flew off East,4 Razorbill , 4 Shelduck , 1 Eider and a very distant Skua sp were seen in flight. 5 Red-throated Divers and 2 Black-throated flew East and the normal count of 20 or so Red-Breasted Mergansers. After a brief chat with Chris, who I'd met on the trip to Georgia and Armenia in 2010, I headed to Church Norton.

At the end of the footpath to the beach a Firecrest was with a couple of Goldcrest. It was high tide in the harbour, with lots of Grey Plover, Knot, Bar-tailed Godwit and Dunlin flying around in flocks to find roosts, Good number of Teal, Wigeon and Pintail and 3 Goldeneye were the harbour and a Peregrine was making sorties from one of the islands.

Offshore the water was calm (although still very grey) and it was incredible to sea the number and variety of sea ducks present. 5 Long-tailed Ducks were the stars (not often seen in this number in Sussex), with 20 Slavonian Grebes, 10 Great Crested Grebes, 5 Redhead Goosanders flew in from the harbour mouth and drifted down the Severals, 3 Black-throated Divers were together on the sea and 2 Red-throated giving good comparison, a single Eider and 2 Velevet Scoters topped off the list. I can't recall there being such a good gathering of species off the coast on the Selsey Peninusula and in such good numbers.