BIRD NEWS:429

The first photo today comes from the mid-August trip to West Wittering/Itchenor that I took with Liz. Hopefully you can spot a pair of oyster catchers along with a gull. This second shot also depicts an oyster catcher.

My final shot from this excursion shows 3 oyster catchers. Back home, and still there are few visits from my feathered friends. It may be the quiet season, other people's pet cats may trespass, or it may be some other reason - but the only regulars are Mr Bob squeaking at me from the tree around 5-5.30am calling for seed and suet, Pidge eating his leftovers, and the occasional single starling or 3-4 sparrow group. I did one day have 2 goldfinches pop by though, and managed to capture a single shot of one on the nyjer seed.

Here we see the early morning crowd minus Mr Bob the robin. Pidge is kindly sharing the seed with the sparrows. Pidge flew away and came back - finding them still munching at the seed supply. Up on the bedroom windowsill, it is cat-free! Alas, that is not the case on the ground - where the fluffy black furball of someone else's ownership snatched a baby jackdaw last week. I flew out of the house hoping to be in time to prevent a death - but found no trace of cat or bird. Hopefully the cat ran away and jackdaw escaped....but knowing THAT troublesome cat, it might have ran off with the bird still in its mouth.

BIRD NEWS:428

This is the final shot from my early August excursion to Arundel - depicting the pair of mute swans by the moat. Back home, little action is occurring - but we do have the sparrows and blue tits back on the feeder after a week or two's break. I caught one shot of the sparrows.

My next excursion was a trip to West Wittering with Liz. We strolled around an island-spit and then hiked to Itchenor before bird-watching and blackberrying on our way back. As at Arundel WWT, there were a few notice boards dotted about offering information. This is the first, showing a selection of the bird life one is likely to spot.

The second board had less birds depicted, but shows a map illustrating the island-spit we circled prior to taking our walk. Of the birds depicted on the various boards - and others seen - we spotted crow, multiple tern/seagull, wood pigeon, egret, sparrow, starling, oyster catcher and curlew - with a couple of unsure sightings thrown in. We walked from the P (car park) shown on the map to the arrow - and beyond on our trip.

On this third board/map, you can see the multiple inlets one can walk around - and our plan is to take the entire harbor as a project and walk the various sections on further excursions - our next planned trip being Itchenor to Birdham and back.

The penultimate board shows nighttime Itchenor wildlife to look for - and that barn owls are in the locality. We spotted what we assume to be badger holes on the island-spit - and bird poop on the board illustrates some daytime activity!

The little egret that we see on the final info board was one of the birds Liz first spotted on our trip. Today's final shot shows gulls with 3-4 curlew on the flats - or would do if you had seen the shot through binoculars rather than a camera!

BIRD NEWS:427

No, my first picture today does not depict a field of cattle - it shows two small flitting birds, if you look carefully. As I strolled back from the WWT into Arundel, passing the cows, I spotted a bunch of small darting birds of the swift/swallow family. I decided to take a few photos, in the hope that some might be clear enough to distinguish the precise species, but...

None of the pictures were clear enough to tell me if they were English swift, marten, or swallow. I could not even check the tail or color properly - as they were so fast... The cows themselves seemed to wonder what I was doing, standing there with a silvery pink box staring towards them.

in the end I gave up - it was getting breezy and I wanted to get on with my shopping.

As I approached the town, on the other side of the road I spotted a pair of mute swans, surrounded by mallards. As I had not captured many photos on this excursion I crossed the street to take a shot or two, before I vanished to search for second hand books, wine, and groceries.

BIRD NEWS:426

Guess what I found as I wandered around the WWT - yes, a show pigeon!! It had just stopped raining, so I was able to take a few shots of the bird as I passed by.

It was just pottering about nibbling and observing on the side of the pond amidst the purple loosestrife and ox eye daisies...

On my second circle of the center, the Bewick cygnets had climbed from the water to preen themselves on the bank. It was looking like rain again, so I decided to walk back into Arundel and do some shopping on my way home. Due to the shopping planned I had not brought the noccies, and there were not that many birds about on this trip. The goldfinch feeder pole, the only one with food still put out, had blown down in the wind and many of the birds were either sheltering or elsewhere.

I realized I would have just over an hour to visit 4 shops and a toilet - a bit too long, so took a brief stroll into the lake across the road on my way back into town. If the weather had been better, I would have hiked all around the lake, but it looked like more showers were coming, so I just caught a goose near the entry. I only saw the one, but I expect the herd were some place around.

Back home, apart from the early morning robin and tame wood pigeon on my windowsill, I have seen very little. This morning, instead of hoards of sparrows, starlings, blackbirds, etc, I saw one blue tit. I keep chasing those black furballs out of my yard - but I can't seem to get the birds to come back.

BIRD NEWS:425

On the second Friday of August, I set out on a solo trip to Arundel - despite the weather. Showers of heavy rainfall and gusts of wind accompanied me on my excursion and I was beginning to wonder if I would ever get the chance to take my camera from my bag. I stood under trees a path away to take my first shot of the day, depicting the 2 black-necked swans at Arundel WWT.

I thought perhaps I might have better luck in the hides - but in the first 3 I visited, there were no birds to be seen. Then I entered the sand martin hide and was rewarded with audio of multiple specimens with the fluttering past the window of the odd sand martin.

It was still raining as I was waiting on a bird to land on the stick outside - hopefully, when a fellow observer drew my attention to my right - where a bended cane was filled with the birds. I managed to get 4 decent shots of the sand martins before moving onward.

I had not spotted the Bewick swan family in the special cages, so assumed and hoped that they had been returned to their regular enclosure, now that the cygnets were older. They had!

The four cygnets were swimming about with the parents when I passed on my first circle of the site - often breaking off in their quartet to perform a game of 'flap and chase'.

BIRD NEWS:424

My next excursion was to WWT Arundel with Liz in the middle of July. On arrival, we discovered we were 3-4 minutes late for the start of a wildflower talk/walk - so dashed off to join in. After we had spent around an hour learning about wetland wild flowers, we started to look at the birds. Above are a pair of ducks - the one on the left I think is a whistling duck - but I am not 100% certain as I did not check the info boards.

We wandered around the meadow maze, and I managed to catch a couple of shots of the Bewick swans - with cygnets. On my last trip, I thought I spotted 2 - but on this trip, it appears they had four! In the second shot, we see a parent Bewick swan 'winging' at a staff worker that came a little too close for the swan's comfort, protecting its young. Apparently only certain staff members are favored, whereas others are warned with loud calls and wing-antics as in this case.

My final shot from this trip is of the black-necked swans, now resident on the former Trumpeter swan lake. I did not get many photos this trip, as we were doing the wildflower talk and I had company, along with the fact that there were not as many birds as usual since they have taken down the feeders in the woodland hide and the eiders were in hiding.

My next trip was solo. I went to Lancing and walked along past Widewater Lagoon to buy paint in Shoreham. I only took a couple of pictures, as there was not much activity - a trio of egrets and a cygnet with parent swans.

Locally - there is not much going on. There seems to be a scarcity of birdlife in the yard. I have a robin, blackbird and wood pigeon who visit the windowsill between 4-30 - 6am, and then....nothing! i have barely needed to put out any food at all. Liz is noticing the same effect on her street - so taking down her feeders for a month or two. Where can they all have gone to????????