Saturday, 3rd May: A bit cooler and cloudier than of late, with a rather grey start in a moderate NE breeze, then brightening and becoming warmer with sunny spells later, as the wind backed to the SW.
Elmer Rocks: It all seemed amazingly quiet, with only a few hints of migration, on what is surely a peak time of year in the birding calendar. I looked at the sea on-and-off over an hour or so, logging only three Great Crested Grebes on the sea, and two Gannets, a Fulmar, six Sandwich Terns and a Whimbrel heading east. Two Yellow Wagtails and four Swallows arrived off the sea and headed north, whilst 15 Sanderlings and three Little Egrets were also feeding along the shoreline near Poole Place. A walk around the back fields produced nothing more than the regular Whitethroats, Blackcaps and Chiffchaffs.
The highlight was non-avian, with my first Painted Lady butterfly of the year and several Orange-tips on the wing.
My first Painted Lady of the year at Elmer
Bilsham Farm: There were a dozen Tufted Ducks on the reservoir, plus a pair of Great Crested Grebes that were displaying to each other and also six Mallard, including a female with the first brood of the year here. Two or three Swallows were feeding over the water, and a Cetti's Warbler and three Yellowhammers were around the boundary hedgerows, but overall it was all rather disappointing and uninspiring.
Displaying Great Crested Grebes and a female Mallard with a brood of 10 young on Bilsham reservoir
I had just started to leave and make my way back, when news came in of an unusually large movement of Red Kites over Littlehampton - and subsequently Angmering - of at least 56 birds heading north-east. The majority of that area falls outside of my 5Km patch boundary, but I wondered if some birds might be closer and viewable, so I hurriedly made my way back to the top of the reservoir banks for a view to the east. There was plenty of heat haze, but on scanning high up I eventually located a whole melee of birds, consisting of Red Kites and lots of agitated gulls. Not the greatest of views, but Kites they were and I estimated there were up to ten, a couple of the closer ones occasionally showing better.
I suspect the birds I saw may have been additional to the 56 mentioned, so altogether quite an event. Quite where they all originated from is not clear, but most likely an influx from the near Continent.
Friday, 2nd May: A dry, warm and sunny day again, but rather hazy at times, with a moderate breeze now having gone round to the SW, with the recent high temperatures predicted to subside as from tomorrow.....
Climping Gap: I was keen to check out the local patch again, after having spent all my birding time on the Selsey Peninsula yesterday. However, on arrival there were just three Great Crested Grebes and eight Sandwich Terns close inshore, but the sea was rather hazy, with glare from the sun and the tide very low; so I opted to leave the beach and look inland.
There were plenty of now-resident Whitethroats and Blackcaps singing on territory, plus several Reed Warblers, Chiffchaffs and Skylarks, but it was all rather predictable until I found a couple of Lesser Whitethroats - the latter actually my first of the year. A wider search produced a couple of Ringed Plovers and Little Ringed Plovers, then on a damp area of set-aside, four Sanderlings dropped in briefly from their migration.
Four Sanderlings, which dropped in briefly at Climping
Shripney area: A visit here for a change proved fairly unrewarding with plenty of Reed and Sedge Warblers, Whitethroats, Blackcaps, Chiffchaffs and other regular species, but nothing really of any note. A couple of Little Grebes, Coots and Mallard were on the small reservoirs, but there were no hirundines or other notables, so it was time to call it a day and head home.
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