Well lockdown’s over and we can travel a bit more, and fortunately the birds have been saving themselves for us. On Thursday we had a big surprise when the long-staying Northern Mockingbird in Devon pitched up in Pulborough. A quick dash out after work gave us good views and a few phonescoped photos that were way better than I expected (doesn’t make them good, though).
Unfortunately it didn’t hang around on Friday, although I still dashed over on Friday afternoon and added Pied Flycatcher and Redpoll to the on-foot list. Today we toured the other Sussex rarities that have been hanging around during the lockdown, both a bit too far to walk to. At Warnham the Little Bunting eventually turned up after a couple of hours waiting and over at Barcombe Cross the White-throated Sparrow played hide and seek with us, but gave reasonable views eventually.