I met Paul Bowley at the Easton Lane car park at 7am for a stroll around Medmerry on one of the very hot days this weekend. Whitethroats and Blackcaps greeted us in the field hedges and were joined by hawking Willow Warblers breakfasting on small swarms of flies above the hedgerow.
One large bramble clump had the most interesting birds of the morning with 2 Whinchat a Stonechat up to a dozen Whitethroat and a Lesser Whitethroat.
We slowly ambled down the track towards the stilt pool with half a dozen Yellowhammer, some Linnet and a small group of young House Sparrows. 3 or 4 Yellow Wagtails flew over and a steady stream of Swallows with a few House Martin and Sand Martin were heading south.
The pools had 2 Greenshank, a Common Sandpiper, an Avocet and a couple of Lapwing, some moulting Teal, Gadwall and more surprisingly 2 Wigeon... and hundreds of unwelcome Canada Geese.
A quick look over the sea yielded little other than a distant Gannet and more hirundines, we reversed our steps, commenting that it was surprising there was not a Wheatear to be seen, that was until we reached the Whinchat bush, behind which there was a significant amount of bunded earth where they appear to be building 2 reservoirs and there was no less than 8 Wheatears on the mounded earth.
We went to Church Norton in the hope of finding some passerines in the bushes around the churchyard, we could only conjure up 2 Spotted Flycatchers with a flyover Hobby, the tide was out in the harbour so a single Greenshank a Common Sandpiper and a few Sandwich Terns were slim pickings and by 11 am it was very hot so I was happy for a slow journey home in an air-conditioned car in anticipation of watching the end of the cricket.... 6 hours later what a finish !!!!
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