End of Year Top Up

 To finish off the year I thought I would catch up with a few birds to grow my year list.

23rd December 2021

Cuckmere Haven

The weather was very wet so I decided to cut my losses and head for the gull roost at Cuckmere Haven.  Thankfully the weather on the coast was much better with no rain.  

There were hundreds of gulls in the roost, mainly Great Black-backed Gulls with some Lesser Black-backed Gulls and Herring Gulls.

• There were 2 obvious Caspian Gulls that I could pick out.  There were several other candidates but I could not be sure of these - I was hoping to bump into Matt Eade to get some help with the less obvious ID's.
• I also saw 1 adult Yellow-legged Gull but again there were probably more. 
• On the east side of the river, just north of the scrape, I was delighted to see a Short-eared Owl foraging along the small grassy area adjacent to the path.  Every now and then it went down to avoid the walkers who were heading to and from the estuary but it soon re-appeared. 

I returned to the same place on 29th December with much the same weather pattern.  This time however the roost held only 100 gulls or so with no obvious Caspian or Yellow-legged Gulls.  The other gulls were much further north and east and too far away to get a decent view even with the telescope.

30th December 2021

Burpham, near Aundel, West Sussex

I was so sure of twitching the 3 Bewick Swans that were wintering in the Arundel area and I was flabbergasted to "dip" on this my final trip out this year.  The birds were actually further upstream just north of Amberley but the news didn't come through until after I had returned home.  

Yesterday they were at Burpham and on New Year's Eve they were at Burpham - that's the way it goes.

New Year's Eve

I decided to stay at home today and still managed to end my birding year on a high.  As I was walking the dogs in the dark around our estate I was delighted to hear the "twit twoo" calls of the Tawny Owls from the high trees in the neighbourhood.

Happy New Year!