Purple Sandpipers at Tidemills near Newhaven in Sussex

 

Friday 6th December 2024

Tide Mills, Newhaven (a.m.)

Ashdown Bird Group

(4 members present)

 

 

Our target species today was purple sandpiper.  This bird is a regular winter visitor to our shores where it frequents seaweed-covered rocks, piers and jetties, often associating with turnstones.  Newhaven Harbour has long been the best local site to look for them, where they are normally found on the harbour arms of the east pier.

 

Today’s weather was dry and mild – the lull before Storm Darragh which we knew was heading our way.    

 

We first saw the purple sandpipers as we approached the East Pier from the beach.  They were feeding on the barnacles on the concrete supports just above the waterline.  As expected, they were associating with the turnstones.  The best views were obtained when we walked along the top of the pier and looked down on the birds.

·   Here is a selection of Ian’s photographs

 

 

                                     This lovely turnstone was photographed from the beach

 

·         Martin also took some photographs and his selection is shown blow.

 

 

This lovely turnstone was photographed from the top of the pier when the bird decided to join us.

There were other highlights.

• There was a rock pipit in the area by the pier.
• Newhaven Harbour is a “hot spot” for fulmar.  They breed on the cliffs on the west side of the harbour and some were still hanging around this morning.  Although they were out of range of our cameras they still produced good images in the telescope, making the ID a formality.
• We also saw at least 2 ravens on the cliffs on the west side of the harbour.
• As well as fulmar we saw great black-backed gulls, black-headed gulls, herring gulls and common gulls.
• On Mill Creek we saw several redshanks, a little egret and a dunlin.
• In the scrubs between the coastal path and the creek there were a number of passerines such as stonechats, meadow pipits, greenfinch, goldfinch, dunnock, linnet, Cetti’s warbler, chaffinch and wren.
• The only raptors seen were a buzzard and a kestrel.

 

This was another successful Friday morning outing, allowing us to have a detailed look at the behaviour and habit of the purple sandpiper.  Martin counted as many as 9 today – still a healthy sign for this endangered species.

Thanks John for facilitating this visit. Thanks also to Ian and Martin for some great photographs.

 

  2024 species count=205