Saturday 31 December 2016

1w Caspian Gull by the fish hut
08.30-10.20 from the turning circle joined by OL, AJG & PW:
Brent Goose: 26 up
Wigeon: 6 down
Teal: 1 down
Common Scoter:  1 up     8 down
Red-throated Diver: 11 up   19 down
Great-crested Grebe: 30+ around
Fulmar:  1 down
Gannet: 205 down        67 up
Oystercatcher: 3 up
Turnstone: 5+ around
Great Skua: 3 up   2 down   (minimum of 2 individuals involved)
Mediterranean Gull: 1 down
Kittiwake:  43 down      5+ around
Guillemot: c 200 around
Razorbill: 4+ around
1w Caspian Gull at the fish hut.

A quick look at Cook's Pool on my way home for breakfast saw the Ring-necked Duck sleeping there.
I joined PW in walk out the back of Scotney, the Little Owl was on it's usual barn though difficult to see, no sign of the Black-necked Grebe on the the back lake, the Geese were all very distant at the Sussex end , I could only find 3 Brents in front of the Greylags, though the range I was viewing them at, the gloomy conditions and Reeds obscuring my view a few Whitefronts could easily have been among them. A party of 16 Egyptian Geese were much closer, also a flock of c40 Corn Buntings were in the hedgerows and a few Skylarks in the fields.
Late afternoon at the ARC Egret roost I only saw 9 Great White and 12 Little Egrets come into the roost, some may well have come in before I arrived as it was so gloomy today. In the 40 minutes I was there 4 Marsh Harriers, a Common Buzzard, a Peregrine, a Merlin, 2 Sparrowhawks and a Kestrel flew over all towards the Open Pits, 5 Goosander were on the lake (2 drakes) and a red head Smew, but the Bewick Swans hadn't come in by the time I left when it was dark.
Elsewhere the Long-eared Owl was back behind the Dipping Pool and the Stejneger's Stonechat was in the Kerton Road quarry area, as far as I know there were no reports of any Dartford Warblers there today.

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