Even though the shortest day is next Monday, the run up to Christmas never quite feels like you have arrived in deep mid-winter, which I think is reserved for the period after Christmas to late January. After a flurry of Winter bird activity and some new arrivals up to a couple of weeks ago, the weather has settled into a grey, mild, wet breezy period where the birds seem to reduce in numbers for a period of time.
The local flocks of Redwing and Fieldfare have all but disappeared from the area, having stripped most of the available hedgerow bounty and have probably moved to areas of open arable and grazed fields for more productive food foraging. The 2 Brambling have appeared regularly with a group of c10 Chaffinches under the feeders near the chicken pen and a similar number of Goldfinch and 3 Greenfinch are frequenting the feeders along with the occasional Bullfinch and a wet weekend walk towards Lower House Farm still showed the large Linnet flock and a few Meadow Pipit but no sighting of any Yellowhammers.
After 4 days of rain, this morning looked dry and there was a strong SE wind predicted, so I headed to Selsey for a seawatch. A South East wind at anytime of year can produce good seabird movements, although December is not always the most obvious month but there can be a build up of Auks and Scoters as we head towards the turn of the year.
The 2 hours I spent there was worthwhile, although numbers of species was fairly limited. A good number of Brent Geese moved East into the wind totaling around 150 typically in groups of between 10 and 30, some were hugging the coast and a others seem to appear from way out, obviously having gone the long way around the Isle of Wight.
2 Great Northern and 5 Red-throated Divers were seen and a handful of auks flew in both directions with Razorbill and Guillemot being close enough for ID. Kittiwakes moved East in small groups with numbers over 60, just 3 Common Scoter, the usual Gannets, Red-breasted Mergansers and Med Gulls were present along with the resident Turnstone flock on the beach.
I then relocated to Church Norton, the tide was rising rapidly and was fairly high, with a rough sea it was clear that the tide was breaching the harbour entrance, it will be interesting to see how the sea wall holds up when we get some real Winter storms in the next month.
The visible mud in the harbour was rapidly disappearing and with that the ability for the waders to feed.
A large number of Dunlin c500+ were the most abundant with a distant flock of c300 Golden Plover, c100+ Lapwing, c100 Grey Plover, just 2 Knot, 3 Ringed Plover, 6 Bar-tailed Godwit and the usual Redshank and Curlew. The channel held 5 Great Crested Grebes, 2 Little Grebes the female Common Scoter, 6 Pintail, c20 Shelduck, several Wigeon, Teal and Brent Geese.
The spectacle was enhanced by 2 distant Marsh Harrier , a flyover Merlin, a single White-fronted Goose on one of the islands, and rather unexpectedly a juvenile Kittiwake perhaps giving up on the rough sea and pitched into the harbour for a rest before flying down the channel.
I called briefly at the Ferry pool where a flock of 27 Avocet were roosting on the pool but were the only birds there other than a couple of Shoveler and 3 Snipe hiding in the reeds. The fields at the back held a flock of Wigeon, Teal and about a dozen Black-tailed Godwit and a Stonechat was on one of the fences.
I left around midday when the rain started and duly set in for the rest of the day but a pretty good morning of Winter birding.
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| Brent Geese |
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| Brent Geese |
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| Great Northern Diver |
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| Guillemot |
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| Turnstone |
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| Fast rising tide in the harbour soon pushing all the waders to roost |
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| Unusual for this juv Kittiwake to pitch into the harbour |
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| Juv Kittiwake. |
