After a domestic weekend, I went out with Paul Bowley to Seaford Head to look for the Pied Wheatear that had been found on Saturday. It was a benefit that Paul had seen the bird yesterday and knew its habits and area it favoured and was happy to have a second outing.
We arrived at Seaford Head shortly after 7.30am and walked out to the cliffs. Without getting too close ! we spent the next 2 hours wandering up and down a 500m stretch of the clifftops peering tentatively over the edge . We bumped into Gary and James (twice in a week !) who were doing the same. There was no sign of the Wheatear and we were starting to presume it had disappeared. A Stonechat, plenty of Rock Pipits and a Black Redstart looked to be our compensation. When about 9.30am a report came through of a brief sighting of the Pied Wheatear at Splash Point that had been seen to fly over the cliffs back towards where we were looking.
We continued our search, but it there was nothing. We decided to drive over to Splash Point as a final attempt and nearly back at the car the message came through that the Pied Wheatear had re-appeared on the Sea Wall at Splash Point. It only took 5 minutes in the car and after a short walk we were watching the Pied Wheatear feeding on the concrete blocks at the base of the cliffs, another UK lifer for me. We spent about 45 minutes watching the bird actively feeding, being harassed by an aggressive Robin and in the company of 2 Black Redstarts, an excellent result.
We drove to the Burgh and had a short watch from the triangle, lots of Red Kite, Buzzards, Kestrel, Skylark a couple of Redwing. The weather was kind although the breeze started to have a cold bite so we called it sufficient early afternoon. Another decent morning.
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| Pied Wheatear |
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| Pied Wheatear |
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| Pied Wheatear |
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| Pied Wheatear |
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| Pied Wheatear |
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| Stonechat |
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| Seaford Head from the base of the cliffs at Splash Point |
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