4th - 6th June 2014

Friday, 6th June: Strong east to south-easterly winds and fair weather are forecast for today......

 

Selsey Bill 0645-0900hrs: ESE F5 (Obs: SR/GH/CRJ)
Gannet - 29E, 2W
Fulmar - 1E
Eider - 3E
Common Scoter - 114E, 21W
Sanderling - 15E
Sandwich Tern - 35E (one carrying food), 1W
Common Tern - 11E, 1W
Commic Tern - 36E, 2W
Little Tern - 3 feeding o/s
 

Medmerry: Stilt-watch early am - The pair of Black-winged Stilts are still holding their own, seeing off crows and gulls with the same tenacity that the Avocets do. Still several pairs of Avocets and 3-4 chicks, and a couple of pairs of Little Ringed Plovers, with at least a couple of chicks in evidence, and a drake Shoveler on the pools.

The female Wheatear was still by the rocks, two Cuckoos were on the far side, several Reed Buntings and numerous Skylarks were about, one (possibly 2) Greenshank were heard but not seen, two or three Little and Common Terns came and went, up to half a dozen Gannet were offshore and about 36 Lapwing (in small flocks) drifted in from further west to settle on the fields. (AH/AB)

 

 

Black-winged Stilts on nest duty (above), Skylark and Little Ringed Plover at Medmerry (AH)

 

 

Avocets (above) & Skylark at Medmerry (DM)

  

Ferry Pool: Ten Avocets loafing this morning (possibly failed breeders from Medmerry?), along with 8 Gadwall, a drake Teal, 25 Black-tailed Godwit and a pair of Shelduck with about 15 youngsters and another female with 3 smaller ones. (AH)

 

Shelduck family on the Ferry (AH)
 

Thursday, 5th June: A real change from yesterday - fine, sunny and dry with a brisk SW wind. An off-Peninsula day to the downs and Arun valley for me; probably a mistake as I saw very little there and kept wondering what I was missing! Which reminds me, AH will be holding the fort all next week; all records to him please although most of you now already know to send your contributions to both of us anyway, which is great. Let's hope there's something decent to report before the summer doldrums set in! (OM)

 

North Wall: A Blackcap with 2 young at Welbourne. On the Breach Pool 6 Tufted Ducks, a pair of Teal but no sightings of the Great Crested Grebes. Along Pagham Rife a pair of Mute Swans with 5 cygnets; 4 Tufted Ducks on Honer Reservoir plus an optimistic Common Tern. Cuckoo calling at Halseys Farm. Magpies were harassing something at Honer which turned out to be a shrew, I was too late to save it (JW).

 

 

 

Tufted Duck on the Breach Pool, and shrew sp. killed by Magpies at Honer farm (JW).

 

Ferry Pool: I made a brief stop on my way home:- 7 Avocets, (one female doing her head-lowering 'come and get me' routine while her partner carried on feeding, ignoring her), 25 Black-tailed Godwits, 2 adult Shelducks with 13 ducklings, 2 juvenile Coots, 7 Mallard ducklings, a calling Cetti's Warbler, and 5 Swifts (SR).

 

Church Norton: Still a big flock of Sanderling in the harbour this evening - somewhere between 40 and 50 (but hard to count!), along with similar numbers of Dunlin and Ringed Plover. There were 4 Little Terns, 6 Sandwich Terns and 14 Common Terns loafing around the harbour - hopefully taking a break rather than having given up on nesting. Also a Cuckoo, a Blackcap and a few Whitethroats calling. (AH)

 

Sandwich Tern (above) & Sanderlings at Church Norton (AH) 

 

 

Wednesday, 4th June: A grey and wet morning with a moderate WSW wind and a decidedly unpromising forecast of heavy rain for a good part of the day, so updates may prove to be somewhat limited! Let us hope that the weather is not  too detrimental to the efforts of the Black-winged Stilts and other nesting species at Medmerry - or to all those involved in the 24-hr watch on these lovely birds -  well done to all participants in the protection scheme, which includes most of the Peninsula regulars. On the subject of Medmerry, apologies to yesterday's contributors but due to a technical error (me I think!) it appears some late blog entries and photos were accidentally deleted... some of the pic's are now repeated below. And a late afternoon update - there was far less rain than predicted and even a few sunny spells. (OM):

 

 

 

 

 

Medmerry yesterday: from the top, Avocet with chick in defensive mode, Avocet pair, Oystercatcher and Little Ringed Plover (DM).

Ferry Pool: 2 Avocets, 3 Redshank, 3 Gadwall, 2 Mute Swans, 2 Tufted Ducks, 3 adult Shelducks with 18 chicks (mainly back of pool out of camera range!), 4 Black-tailed Godwits, c15 Coot with 2 young, 1 calling Cetti's Warbler and many Reed and Sedge Warblers singing (SR).

Medmerry: West Sands to the Breach - The most surprising bird of the morning was a Kingfisher in one of the tidal creeks. There were still a few waders about this morning, too, including a pair of Little Ringed Plovers and two pairs of Ringed Plovers, a Bar-tailed Godwit, 12 Grey Plovers, 3 Redshank and a Lapwing with a well-grown chick. Also, the pair of Little Terns was still on the mud, two Mediterranean Gulls and two Sandwich Terns went west, the large Common Scoter flock was distantly off Medmerry Cliff and there were a couple of Skylarks and Meadow Pipits around the rubble heaps. (AH)

Little Terns (above) Little Tern & Bar-tailed Godwit, and Ringed Plover at Medmerry (AH)