South Coast Birding with Elizabeth and Mark

Wednesday 15th September 2021

Beachy Head and Cuckmere Haven

Another chance to go birding with Mark and Elizabeth to celebrate the latter's recent retirement.  The weather was spot on - warm with hardly any wind. 

I joined up with them at Horseshoe Plantation, then we moved east up to the car park at the top of the hill where we walked out to the area overlooking Whitbread Hollow before finally, after lunch, moving west to Cuckmere Haven where we walked out to the scrape at the mouth of the river.

• At Horseshoe Plantation Elizabeth and Mark had been watching Spotted Flycatchers before I arrived - thankfully one was still showing brilliantly in the bushes by the car park as I joined them.  A Sparrowhawk and 2 Ravens were also around and displaying brilliantly for us.
• Butterflies dominated the second part of our trip with Small Heath, Small Copper, Meadow Brown, Common Blue, Small White and Red Admiral the pick of the bunch.  On the birding front there was a large presence of House Martins which was delightful to watch.
• Elizabeth was keen to find a Whinchat so I suggested we call in at Birling Gap, en-route to our final destination, where I had seen one recently.  We actually found 5, on the wire fence running east from Birling Gap Road!  While we were there we also saw 3 Yellow Wagtails and a Wheatear by the nearby sewage works.
• At Cuckmere Haven there was a huge presence of Goldfinches as we left the car park and walked south to the sea.  At the scrape we saw 1 of the 5 Curlew Sandpipers that had been reported the previous day; it was with scores of Dunlin and Ringed Plover.  A Green Sandpiper was a welcome addition as were a couple of Ruff that appeared while we were there.  At one point we found a small group of 7 Little Grebes.

Another great learning experience!