New Year Catch Up Part One - Birds

Birding began in earnest just over a week ago with a trip that took in Widewater lagoon, the common at Pulborough Brooks, Amberley, Rackham and Burpham. An exciting time of year with the bare trees sometimes allowing better views and best of all a clean slate and new start for "year ticks".

Even regulars like Mallard are briefly interesting. At Widewater we also saw Little Egret, Little Grebe, Mergansers, Wren, Meadow Pipit, Pied Wagtail, Cormorant, Redshank, Black-headed and Great Black-backed Gulls. On the beach I finally saw the elusive, but as it turns out far from shy, Snow Buntings. Easy to spot this time with an enormous camera lens pointing them out. We also saw Turnstones and Sanderlings and amongst the gulls at the water's edge an Iceland Gull.

After a while we headed for Burpham, where we found Grey Partridge, Kestrel, Common Buzzard, Mistle Thrush, Skylark, Pheasant and once again the Rough-Legged Buzzard.

Moving on to Amberley we failed this time to find the Bewick Swans and found only a lot of Canada and Greylag Geese, some Deer and Lapwings

We then headed to Pulborough Brooks but chose the Common area rather than the marshes. There we almost immediately encountered a Treecreeper and a number of Siskins, Fieldfare and Jay but no sign of the Crossbills we hoped for other than an encouraging sound or two. Back at the reception area feeders we also saw Chaffinch, Bluetit and Great Tit, Dunnock. Sparrow and Robin. Finally, as the light began to fail we headed to Rackham where we couldn't get close enough to identify a number of geese but did see a Great-Crested Woodpecker.