It looks like this warm spell will be at an end tomorrow when the wind shifts and a bit of rain moves in. This morning I met Paul Bowley at Selsey Bill at first light, clear blue skies and a temperature that climbed into the high 20's, with an ESE F4 wind there was always a chance of something more interesting moving.
The morning was dominated by a continuous movement of hirundines flying South, to start mainly Swallows but increasingly large groups of House Martins moving in tight flocks. Our count over a 3 hour period was c700 Swallow,s c1,200 House Martins and c100 Sand Martins, but this probably significantly underestimated the true numbers as we would often picked up dots on the horizon moving through that weren't picked up to count. The other movement was Yellow Wagtails, as soon as we arrived about 30 took off from the beach, we counted over 85 going through in total, again this was probably an underestimate. 4 Wheatears around the beach were the only other passerine of note. It is great when you see this sort of visible migration. There was not much moving on the sea itself with just a handful of Sandwich Terns, a Fulmar which flew directly over us, a couple of Med Gulls and the usual Gannets. 8 Common Scoter and 2 Teal were seen, but the best were 3 Balearic Sheawaters. A Single at 7.20am and 2 together at 8.45am. The pair were slightly closer (still quite distant) and allowed a better view, being able to pick out some of the features. It is sometimes said that the flight is not a true indicator of separation to Manx Shearwaters, whether that's the case or not these birds had a lot of wing-beats and only short glides, compared to the sometimes arching shears that the Manxies display.
We tore ourselves away from the beach and relocated to Medmerry. It was quite windy which was keeping any passerines low so other than a Kingfisher, we saw very little until we reached the Stilt Pools. It looked very birdy, but that was probably because the 300+ Canada Geese were there with 14 Egyptian Geese and some awkward looking others, included Barnacle types and some 'Lesser' Canada Geese types. On closer inspection there were quite a few other birds with 20+ Wigeon, several Teal, 10 Tufted Duck, Gadwall and a Pintail. A surprise when we found the juvenile Black Tern feeding at the back of the water, it had been reported a few days ago but assumed to have gone. 2 Ruff, Common Sandpiper, Greenshank and Avocet were there with 4 Cattle Egrets, a few more Yellow Wagtails, and c50 Sand Martins over the water. On returning I managed to see an Osprey rather distantly land in trees at the far side of the reserve.
A pretty good morning.
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| Yellow Wagtail |
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| Fulmar |
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| Kingfisher |
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| Black Tern |
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| Black Tern |
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| Black Tern |
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| Black Tern |
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