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A couple of days’ seawatching over the weekend was slow going, but it’s always a treat to see Little Terns, and a Bonxie was a bit of a relief after the hammering they have taken from avian influenza.  A lack of energy for long-distance walking meant that we hopped in the car for a change and did some twitching: to Seaford for the White-crowned Sparrow and to Pulborough for a Wood Warbler.  This is getting harder to find in its alleged breeding grounds in Yorkshire, so it was good to get a passage bird, although it had stopped singing by the time we arrived.    It would have been a good day to walk, as there was a Pied Flycatcher and five Wood Sandpipers there too.

At home, there’s a couple of Grass Snakes around the pond, including this whopper.

White-crowned Sparrow

Wood Warbler

Grass Snake

I dashed out for a pre-work walk around the Brooks this morning, in the hope of finding some migrants.  It was a bit quiet, with a few Reed Warblers in, but not the hoped for Grasshopper Warbler, which has ignored some good looking habitat for quite a few years now.  Setting out for a brisk walk back to get to my desk in reasonable time, it all went wrong: there was a Gropper yelling its head off where I’d been 20 minutes earlier.  Of course Karen wasn’t there, but she was able to dash over in a quarter of an hour while it was still noisy.  Eventually it showed, never unobscured, but the closest and loudest Gropper we’ve ever had.  I’ll admit it: I might have been a bit late to my desk.

Grasshopper Warbler

Bird migration is moving slowly, but insects provided a bit of interest today.  The garden had bees, hoverflies and a Dark-edged Bee Fly, some Mining Bees nesting in the road gave us an ID challenge, and then, only a few hours after we discovered that there is another cute Bee Fly species in the area, we were surrounded by them.  Looking back, my last post had a picture of a Dotted Bee Fly as well, but we didn’t spot the difference, because we’d never heard of it.

Common Carder Bumblebee

Tapered Dronefly

Dark-edged Bee Fly

Noon Fly, a new insect for us

Dotted Bee Fly, showing a white stripe on its backside

Dotted Bee Fly, a new insect for us

Yellow-legged Mining Bee

As spring advances, the birds are trickling in, with the first Swallows in from the sea being a highlight for me.  The pond is livening up and the butterflies are increasing.

Smooth Newt

Our first Grass Snake of the year

Well, it is Easter

Dotted Bee Fly. We failed to notice the difference because we never knew they existed.

Skylark

Small White

The first signs of spring include the emergence of Adders.  Cissbury Ring is a great place to find them, but we’ve never done as well as this morning, when we found 10, including a couple that slithered off, but decided that I wasn’t a threat and came back for a photoshoot.

Jackdaw

Only three heads, but four tails

Common Gull

Last week a walk to No Man’s Land gave us Brambling, yet another wintering Dartford Warbler, hiding owls, a brief view of a Hen Harrier and the compulsory Kite flypast.  This weekend we’re up in Yorkshire.  A stop off on the way found us distant Cranes and a stonking Tawny Owl (the only owl of the four species that are there at present). A trip over to see family in Ilkley provided a bonus in the form of two Otters swimming up the Wharfe.  Only my second English Otters and the first in Yorkshire.

Red Kite

Brambling

Tawny Owl

My first Yorkshire Otters

Our first long walk of the year, 23 miles to Burpham and the Burgh, was easier than expected, helped by the fact that the ground was frozen, and so the usual mudbath through the Dover was easier to walk through.  A glorious, but cold, day gave us distant Bewick’s Swan and closer Cattle Egret at Burpham, but the raptor frenzy that others have had at the Burgh of late was not as hoped for.  A long and cold wait for anything of interest was eventually rewarded just after 4 pm, when first three Barn Owls and then a Short-eared Owl came out to play.  Three hours walk through the dark felt a lot better after that.

Looking towards the Isle of Wight from The top of the down behind our house

Cattle Egret

Barn Owl

Short-eared Owl

Sabine’s Gull is one of my favourite gulls, and I’ve only seen it twice in the UK, and immature birds at that.  The lure of an adult across the border in Hampshire was too much to resist this afternoon.  The bird showed fantastically, at close range, and to complete things, the low sun was perfect and the wind was in the ideal direction for flypasts.

Merry Christmas!

The pre-Christmas freeze brought waders to the brooks behind us, but they left with the thaw.  Other than that there’s little around to photograph other than raptors.  The White-tailed Eagle is one of the birds “re-“introduced into the Isle of Wight.  Plastic or not, they’re magnificent birds.

Sparrowhawk through the bedroom window

White-tailed Eagle

Sparrowhawk

Red Kite

And down we went to Patagonia, crossing to Tierra del Fuego for a night and then back to Torres del Paine (via the scenic route).

There are many more (and larger and better quality) on my OneDrive (there’s a link from the Chile 2022 page in trips).

Puma

Torres del Paine

Tawny-throated Dotterel

Rufous-chested Plover

Patagonian Hairy Armadillo

Magellanic Plover

Guanaco

King Penguin

Upland Goose

Black-browed Albatross

Dusky Dolphin

Chilean Skua