Tuesday 6th January - Grey, grim, damp and Dusky

On hearing of a Dusky Warbler at Chichester gravel pits yesterday afternoon, I decided to try to see the bird this morning. Sunrise was scheduled for 8.04am - I always assume that the light is sufficient to start birding 15 minutes before official sunrise, but this morning at 8.15am when I was walking down the causeway it still felt dark under leaden skies and nothing was moving in the shadows.

Chi gravel pits are a place I normally drive straight past without a look - a decent lake complex that has turned up good birds and at the very least holds an number of waterfowl, so I'm not sure what it is but I just find the place unappealing to walk around and I'm not sure that the grey damp start today endeared me to the place any more.

Duck numbers were not large, a few Tufted Duck, Pochard, Shoveler, Wigeon and Gadwall,  plenty of Coot and Little Egret well into double figures. I walked down the main footpath to East Lake,  where the last sighting of the warbler had been yesterday and a few more people started to arrive. A further hour passed and the light was still poor . A Chiffchaff and 3 Kingfishers were of interest but it wasn't until around 9.30 that the bird was heard calling in a Bramble patch on the corner of East Lake. The bird called a couple of times then shot out of the bush and out of view.

After another 5 minutes waiting ,we walked further along the footpath at the south of the lake to the next bramble patch, where it called it's familiar loud 'chak' again. Over the next 45 minutes, views of the Dusky Warbler started as bits of the bird, (beak view, then supercilium view, then legs and tail,.. etc)  moving through the bramble undergrowth, eventually progressing to the whole bird as it popped out of cover momentarily on at least 3 occasions and then eventually moved to an open tree then some shrubs in the garden of a bungalow before disappearing again. It was active but very skulky - just as it should be. I didn't even manage to press the shutter down on the camera let alone have a number of pictures to filter out for a good one.

However, a nice bird to have on the list in the first week of the year.