what happened in January

well, January was by and large a quiet month for me birds wise. The only time I really got out was on New Year's Day, and after reaching 200 last year, I haven't bothered with a yearlist this year. Too much effort, and I found myself focusing on my list more than the actual birds on occasions. Personally, I think birding is a far happier thing to do if you are appreciating the bird for being a bird. For being unusual, fr being commonplace, for being an ID challenge, for being drop-dead gorgeus, for having a nice song, or simply being charismatic. But I don't think a true birder should appreciate birds solely for a tick.

2011 started with an expedition to Pett Levels. A RED-BREASTED GOOSE had turned up here, along with 300+ White-fronts and a few Barnacle and Brent Geese. I thought that was all the geese we would see, but birding can be full of surprises...

Joining me and dad on this New Year's Day trip were Dave, Katie and James Beadle (our company on the canadian trip), Rick Munday and Nick Pope. As our cars drove up to Pett Level, a 300+ strong skein of geese circled over the marshes. Setting up the scope, we quicky found the RED-BREASTED GOOSE, along with 300+ White-fronted Geese, 70+ Barnacle Geese and c30 Brent Geese. Looking at the Brent's closer, we found 11 of them were PALE-BELLIED, a very high count of a very scarce species in Sussex. I then checked the see, which held 50+ Great Crested Grebes and a handful of Red-throated Divers, but not a lot else. The pools and fields had plenty of waders, Lapwing in the thousands, three figure numbers of Curlew and smaller numbers of Dunlin, Golden Plover and Redshank. A few more Dunlin were roosting on the beach with 40+ Turnstone and a few Bar-tailed Godwit. Ducks were also in plentiful supply, with thousands of Wigeon, hundreds of Teal and Mallard and two-figure counts of Pochard, Tufted Duck, Gadwall and Shoveler. A Stonechat flitting around a ditch and fenceposts by the road was a nice find, especially given the December we had had.

What happened next all happened so quickly I can't quite recall exactly what happened. But Rick put up a shout of two BEAN GEESE. No sooner had he put everyone on them than we noticed there were actually six. But they were very distant and difficult to identify. Their short necks and stubby bills immediately excluded Taiga Bean, but they were too distant to see the bill or leg colour on reliably. However, two had silvery-coloured backs, and four where browner coloured, so we concluded they were 4 TUNDRA BEAN GEESE and 2 PINK-FOOTED GEESE. Both rare birds in Sussex, and the Pink-feet a new sussex bird for me.
We walked to get closer, but a Peregrine put everything up. After about 15 minutes the geese came back, and we wanted to try and see they grey geese again. But now there were eight of them! After quite a lengthy debate between Dad, Nick, Rick and myself (the Beadles had departed by now) we eventually decided there were now six PINK-FEET and two TUNDRA BEAN GEESE! However, considering the possibility some of the geese may have been out of sight before they were spooked, and sme mya have come into view, I'd say there were at least six Pink-feet and four Tundra Bean Geese, as we had been confident of our ID's the first time around, there were only two that looked like Pink-feet that time. Oh, and while we were sorting out this great debate, we were having to avoid being distracted by the Red-breasted Goose, which literally seemed to glow amongst its duller companions. And the Black Brant was nice too. And I don't exactly see White-fronts, Barnacle Geese or Pale-bellied Brents every day either! By the end f the day we had ammased the following total from Pett Level

• c300 White-fronted Goose
• c70 Barnacle Goose
• 19 Dark-bellied Brent Goose (branta bernicla bernicla)
• 11 Pale-bellied Brent Goose (branta bernicla hrota), if I'm not mistaken this is the largest group of this race in sussex for many years
• 1 BLACK BRANT (branta bernicla nigricans)
• 6 PINK-FOOTED GEESE
• 4 TUNDRA BEAN GEESE (anser fabilis rossicus)
• 1 RED-BREASTED GOOSE

• c2000 Lapwing
• c100 Curlew
• c100 Dunlin
• c50 Golden Plover
• c40 Redshank
• c40 Turnstone
• c20 Bar-tailed Godwit

• c3000 Wigeon
• c200 Teal
• c200 Mallard
• c40 Gadwall
• c20 Shoveler
• c20 Pochard
• c10 Tufted Duck

plus a Stonechat. I feel I should mention that Stonechat.



click on these photos to enlarge them and (hopefully) see where the rarer geese
are amongst the hordes of White-fronts, Barnacles and Brents!



To round off a brilliant day, we saw three WAXWING as we drove through Winchelsea, as they perched on telegraph wires above the road.

After this day, I did very little birding in January. On the 10th I saw 3 Purple Sandpipers at Newhaven East Pier, getting great views of one very confiding bird. But other than that, the only birds were a Stonechat that has wintered in a small little reserve along Seaford seafront, known as the Old Brickfield, a Blackcap seen in a garden walking to school on the 31st and regular singing utbursts from Robin, Song Thrush, Blackbird, Great Tit, Dunnock, Wren, Greenfinch and Goldfinch

Splash Point-24 April 2010

With SE winds from the off, and 25 birders keeping their eyes on the sea, this was always going to be a fantastic day. And so it proved to be.

The most constant feature of the 2.5 hours dad and I spent at Splash this morning were Terns. They were constantly streaming past, a never ending flow of dainty, persil white flying machines on loose, powerful wings. Commic terns were ab absolute constant, many coming very close. I would estimate we saw upwards of 400 during our stint. Most of the flocks went very close, allowing the short-billed, long-tailed Arctics to be picked out in good numbers, I identified at least 50, probably about 70 or 80 (it was a week ago, my memory has gone a bit fuzzy since then!), and there were almost certainly well over a hundred moving through. Sandwich Terns went through in three-figures too, and among the hundreds of these commoner terns were 8 Little Terns, which they really were among their big cousins, and 4 Black Terns, looking for all the world like huge swifts, plowing accross the sea in such a haphazard way I half-expected them to crash land into the water.

Skuas were a fairly big feature too. One Arctic Skua circled right over our heads before carrrying on east, and two went ENE towards Seaford Head Golf Course, being lost from sight as they vanished over the cliffs. Overall about 12 Arctic and 8 Great Skua went through, but sadly no Poms.

100 Little Gulls flew past, their very ability to actually fly without being blown about in the wind like a butterfly amazing me as much as anything else. Unsurpisingly though, a fairly strong SE wind did push a few inland. 40 went over our heads, including one spectacular flock of 30 birds, all heading towards Arlington Reservoir. No Bonaparte's were among them, though!

A fair few waders also went past. about 60 each of Whimbrela and Bar-tailed Godwit, the latter in tight compact flocks that zipped by so fast you could miss them if you blinked. Thankfully, one mixed flock did put down on the beach briefly, giving good views, but quickly flew off, passing us quite close in. Most bizarre of all, though, was a group of 4 Avocet. First picked up at a ridiculous distance of about 2 kilometres, they were sitting on the sea! After a few minutes, the unsure little group took off, flying past us in quite unsteady fashion (though that is normal for any Avocets). However, their nerves showed when they put down again, about 100 metres east of the groyne! They only stayed for a minute or two before finally finding their wings again, but I got a fairly good look at them, thanks to the birder who kindly let me use his scope.

Other than all that has been mentioned, their were a fair number of wildfowl. About 50 each of Common Scoter and Brent geese, including one Pale-bellied bird, and two Shoveler, two Pintail and 13 Shelduck.

A Brilliant day's seawatching!