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Off to Newhaven today to see the Hume’s Warbler that has apparently been around since last year.  Eventually we got a decent, but not stellar view.  Then on to Shoreham Harbour for another failed attempt to find Purple Sandpiper.  Rock Pipits and Guillemot showed well, though.  Brooklands gave us our first Sanderlings of the year.  Finally we went to Beeding Brooks for a go at the very photogenic Short-eared Owls.  A view of a distant bird lasting maybe a couple of seconds was not what we were hoping for.

Hume’s Warbler on a very brief moment in the clear.

Hume’s Warbler is very similar to Yellow-browed, but its ability to levitate sets it apart.

Rock Pipit

Guillemot

Sanderling

It was time for a long overdue clean of the bird feeders today, so I sat and scrubbed on the doorstep on the patio.  I wasn’t that surprised that the Long-tailed tits still made regular visits to the remaining feeders, only about 4 m away, as they are just plain cheeky.  I was a bit more surprised when a Magpie came down.  My status as irrelevant was confirmed when a Fox appeared at the end of the garden, gave me a look and then walked across the lawn in front of me and went through the hedge.

The year has started birdily.  A day out, but not a bird race, on the 1st got us 97 species, although nothing to photograph apart from a Robin who was just not quite brave enough to take food from me.  On Saturday we caught up with the superb Black Redstart at Shoreham, again in rubbish light, and on Sunday we had a jaunt to Rye Harbour and Dungeness.  Dunge was rubbish, but Rye was good, the start birds were three Twite.  We only saw them well almost at dusk, hence the rubbish picture.  Today’s star bird was a Sparrowhawk: it’s taken 123 species to get one.

All that and a badger from the back window on Saturday night makes it a good start to the year.

Robin

Black Redstart

Twite

A last post for 2018, continuing from the previous one, with a photo of one of the local Herdwicks that finally stood near a camera in vaguely acceptable light.  On a gloomy day, photographing anything smaller than a sheep was pretty much impossible.

Our last moth trap of the year on Boxing Day caught only one moth, but it was a new one for us: a Mottled Umber.

Mottled Umber

Herdwick

… that is the north of England.

After 25 years down south my influence is obviously starting to work.  On my Friday afternoon walk on the South Downs behind the house I’ve been encountering sheep that are a long way from home.  As well as a small flock of Herdwicks that should be in Cumbria, there’s also a large flock of Swaledales that make the Downs look a bit more like the Yorkshire Dales

Alas, the full Yorkshire influence isn’t quite there, as the Swaledales have flown south for winter from Penrith in Cumbria: the wrong side of the Pennines, which is probably why they’re too soft to cope with winter up there.

Happy Christmas to both of my regular visitors…

We haven’t done much birding of late, and that we have done has had very few photographable birds.

Finally here are a few: a nice Goldcrest in the garden, and a few nice birds from a long walk around West Dean Woods on Tuesday.  Why are Ravens always strongly backlit?

Goldcrest

Firecrest

Buzzard

Raven

The wading through the photos is finally over (apart from the book).  I’ve gathered the pictures from the last few posts into a page here.   There is a link there to many more pictures on my OneDrive.

I need to start taking pictures in Sussex again.  Given the rubbish efforts I managed of a Pallas’s Warbler at Brooklands and my failure to get a camera on the Stonechat and the Common/Pallid Swift at home, I’m in need of improvement!

One last set of pictures from the Canopy Camp section of our Panama trip.  When the rest are done I’ll collect these into a trip and put more on my OneDrive.

Little Tinamou: years of frustration with this bird finally over.

Caught napping: the Blue Morpho was resting open, but clamped shut as soon as I moved to get a better angle.

Our ensuite Sloth (It can’t be a bad place when you can see a Sloth from your toilet).

Spot-crowned Barbet

Fork-tailed Flycatcher

This Tome’s Spiny Rat trapped itself looking for food in a bucket

Leafhopper

A night drive took us about 2 yards before the van broke down. The night walk that followed had the advantage of close views of Pauraque

This False Fer de Lance is harmless.

Common Opossum

Crane Hawk

Golden-green Woodpeckers, male below, female above.

Black Oropendola

Dusky-backed Jacamar, very range-restricted.

Crested Oropendola

Southern (or Neotropical) River Otter. We’ve been rumbled.

The dry season road isn’t usable in the wet.

Lesser Yellow-headed Vulture

White-headed Wren

Bananaquit

Smaller, rarer and harder to see than Harpy Eagle, this Crested Eagle was a massive bonus. The dark morph is rarer still.

The easiest way around the forest in Quebrada Felix is to walk up the river.

Spectacled Owl

A frog he would a-wooing go.

Cracker sp

Red-crowned Woodpecker

White-nosed Coati

Red-tailed Squirrel

Clay-colored Thrush

Geoffroy’s Tamarin

Rose-breasted Grosbeak

Double-toothed Kite

Tropical Kingbird, an ever-present bird.

This female Great Curassow has been visiting a farm for the chicken-feed since it was a chick.

White-fronted Nunbird