Monday 1st May - Spring Bank Holiday

The heavy frosts during the week had a toll on my potatoes ! and I had heavy snow of Thursday but I was in Zurich for the day. I heavy cold prevailed but it was fleeting and by Friday I had shaken it.
The wind looked promising over the weekend for coastal birding . A light SSE on Saturday at Selsey produced a decent return. I was there before 6am (by no means the first )

Common Tern 35
Sandwich Tern 20
Little Tern 5
Common Scoter 236
Velvet Scoter 4
Great Northern Diver 4
Red-throated Diver 1
Eider 1
Dark-Bellied Brent Goose 8
Bonxie 29
Arctic Skua 10
Sanderling 1
Dunlin 2
Whimbrel 13
Bar-tailed Godwit 144
Little Egret 1
Wheatear 1
Whitethroat 1

Wheatear landed on the beach

Dark phase Arctic Skua

Sunday was a domestic day, including trying to rescue the potatoes and other plants that had suffered with the frost and it looked like I might have missed the main sea passage as the strong SEasterlies had brought good numbers of birds along the coast with the seeimingly the best day for the prized Pomarine  Skuas.

So I headed back to Selsey very early on Bank Holiday Monday, thinking at best I might pick up a few scraps. It turned out rather well although it was crammed into an hour between 6.30am and 7.30am when the highlight was 12 Pom skuas with a flock of 8 being the best .

Sandwich Tern 42
Common Tern 73
Little Tern 18
Arctic Tern 8
Roseate Tern 1
Pale Bellied Brent Goose 2
Dark Bellied Brent Goose 6
Pomarine Skua 12 (1: 6.25, 8: 6.45, 1:6.50, 1: 7.45)
Arctic Skua 5
Bonxie 1
Great Northern Diver 4
Red-throated Diver 1
Little Gull 1
Med Gull 1
Whimbrel 5
Sanderling 4
Common Sandpiper 2
Swallow 7
Sand Martin 1
House Martin 2

The remainder of the day was cold with showers, even the sheep kept under their shelter most of the afternoon.

Pale-bellied Brent Geese

Intermediate phase Arctic Skua