Round and About

Today was a bit of a round robin, geographically speaking, not overweight Erithacus rubecula. I started at Farlington Marshes just as the first rays of sunshine hit the landscape. I particularly wanted to photograph Yellow Wagtails among catlle. These had been reported on the HOS site and as I had spent a previous day wandering around every field to the north of Pagham Harbour with nary a sign then this seemed an ideal opportunity.  I had forgotten what Farlington is like, it is akin to birding in the centre of Wembley Stadium on cup final day, the traffic noise is deafening. I found several Yellow Wagtails exactly as described but they didn't hang around for long as they joined a flock circling overhead and disappeared for good.

Not daunted I walked the footpath through the marsh. I was suprised by two things - the size of the Redshank roost - probably the best part of 200 birds with more arriving as the tide came in and the amount of foxes, one of which was feeding on blackberries of all things.

Redshanks everywhere

Fruit fancying fox

Eventually I reached the sea wall and saw a fairly large flock of BTGs being concentrated by the encroaching waters, lots of birds were ringed so I recorded as many as I could. Further away there were some Grey Plovers , several still sporting summer attire. In the corner just by the car park there were several Greenshanks.

Decreasing real estate

Fading summer garb

By now the water was flushing the birds off to other parts of the marsh so I left for Warblington - there are always Yellow Wagtails behind the Church and cemetery. Wrong!! A whole host of dog walkers ensured that there was nothing to be seen.

On to Nunnery Lake to give the Red-footed Falcon another "two coats of looking at", unfortunately he had vacated the premises so I continued on to Church Norton with the idea of a leisurely couple of hours in the churchyard - wrong again  - funeral in progress. Having finally found somewhere to park I ventured down to the harbour. Out on the shingle there was a "crowd" of birders - obviously something interesting so I bypassed the roosting Nightjar and hastened to join them. A Wryneck - discovered by Chris Janman but unfortunately flushed away by an over enthusiastic inconsiderate birder. The crowd drifted away, after all they had seen it. I was determined to stay and wait for the bird to reappear. Fortunately "Ivan the Warden" appeared and heroically relocated said bird much to the pleasure of the assembled few - thanks Ivan.

The funeral now over meant that an hour in the churchyard would round off a good day, very quiet indeed, just a couple of spotties so back home for tea and a bun.

By the way I did take lots of Wryneck pictures but not one of them was of publishable quality - anyone can show a picture of a brown blob in a bush a long long way off, pity, at least one birder got close and ruined it for others.