Sussex birding

We teamed up with Great grey shrike on Sunday 23 January,  we started are day at Fishbourne creek where Maximus found a Kingfisher sitting on the reeds,  whilst scanning the creek we had Dunlin, Grey plover, Curlew, Brent goose, Lapwing, Black headed gulls and an adult winter Little stint which gave good views feeding alongside Dunlin, we watched it for a wile, on the way back to the car Maximus picked up the Kingfisher again sitting on the reeds a bit further along the creek,  we then flushed a Jack snipe up from the vegetation, from  here we headed over to Thorney island to find the long staying Short eared owl.

Short eared owl

When we arrived we got told that the owl was still in the usual bush to left of the security gate, Maximus spotted the Short eared owl just sitting there, we got amazing views of the it you could make out the feathered up feet ,we then tried to find some greenshanks but there was no sign but we did 

Noted down

Little grebe

Brent goose

Canada goose

Slavonian grebe

Redshanks and Mute swans from here we popped into Church Norton

When we arrived at Church Norton we noted down

1 Bar tailed godwit

Dunlin

10 Avocets

Wigeon

7 Slavonian grebes were noted on the sea also Red breasted merganser.  

Brambling

then we headed to west dean woods hoping to see Hawfinches, along the path Maximus found 2 Marsh tits on a feeder with Greenfinches, a bit further up we had at least 2 Brambling with a flock 200 Chaffinches which was amazing to see, from the view point we had a pair of Nuthatches 3 more marsh tits and 2 more Brambling.

me and Great grey shrike then heard a raven calling but there was no sigh of it on the way back to the car Maximus took one more look back and found two Hawfinches sitting high up on the tree tops ,which made a total of 9 this weekend  so not bad .





Brambling