Old Lodge, Gills Lap, Splash Point, Swanbourne Lake, The Burgh and Church Norton

Bob from the States was back and it was a full on day of birding! First up was Old Lodge, with highlights of two Ravens, five Siskins, six Lesser Redpolls and a Bullfinch. A walk around the Old Airstrip produced an early Tree Pipit, two Stonechats and a flock of 20 Siskins. We then drove to Splash Point and marvelled at the hundreds of Kittiwakes, a couple of Fulmars and enjoyed fabulous views of a hunting adult male Peregrine, as well as a Raven on the clifftop. Swanbourne Lake was our next stop, offering up a singing Marsh Tit but little else so we pressed on to The Burgh. Here we instantly connected with four Grey Partridges and a Red Kite. Mid-afternoon we spent an hour or so at Church Norton, rewarded with highlights including a Whimbrel, a Goosander, a Dark-bellied Brent Goose, two Bar-tailed Godwits and small numbers of Sandwich Terns and Mediterranean Gulls. Checking in to Ferry Pool on the way out, two Green Sandpipers and seven Wigeon formed last minute additions to the day list.

Whimbrel at Church Norton

Green Sandpipers at Ferry Pool

Freshers gets Booted

Over the last few days I've been starting university down at Brighton, it's all been a little bit of a blur but it's been fun meeting new people and I'm really looking forward to my course (Ecology) getting going. Being it's quite a niche course, there aren't too many people on it and they all share similar drives and passions, many of them keen on wildlife, a couple of them being keen birders and all of them believing that biodiversity and the environment are very precious things that they want to play a part in preserving.

Yesterday we were welcomed to the Ecology course. After the checking in, introductions from the lecturers and health and safety garble we went on a scavenger hunt working our way from the campus towards the pier and a bar on the terrace. News had come through of a Booted Warbler at Seaford while this was all going on and as much as I was enjoying myself I couldn't let this lifer only a thirty minute drive from my digs get away. So, I bid a fond farewell to my understanding new friends and made a dash for it. The great thing about the course is that many of the people on it are also abnormally interested in wildlife so they don't look at you quite so quizzically when you say you're off to see a small brown bird. Rona is bat batty, Rebecca spends many evenings hunting newts and Marco, from Peru, is a real life Mowgli and partly lives a jungle life where he watches and identifies the birds, insects and mammals of his home country. Getting away, though, involved catching the bus back from the Pavilion to my halls, which added some time to it but I was back at the car before too long and on my way.

Booted Warbler

I arrived to see several familiar faces including Matt Eade, Lee Evans, Jamie Wilkinson, Paul Rowe and Luke Dray. The warbler did appear very quickly but was extremely uncooperative, showing only in flight or for a split-second atop the foliage. Neil Randon and his wife Annie turned up towards the end of the day and accordingly the warbler put on a much better show in the fading light. A very pleasant twitch in the end, with the bird doing the business and the opportunity to catch up once more with some of my friends from the birding world. Booted Warbler is a lifer for me and a cracking bonus to my time at freshers.