the freshest puffin corpse i've seen, this one even had eyes intact

did 'rise&shine this morning resulting in the first migrant passerine of spring - a white wag in a large flock of pieds. 4 chiffchaffs was an increase on the 1 last time. no sign of the smew.

a firecrest was in the garden again. they're probably regular but i'm rarely home in daylight hours in the winter.

down the cuckmere there was a decent flock of adult lesser black-backs, another sign of spring, and the only immature gull amongst them was a 1st-w yellow-legged. several messy scan rock pipits along the river, none looking good just yet.

finally got a decent view of the spoonbill. a better looking bird now the bare parts have changed colour

latest on the auk catrastophe from birdguides:

Update, 27th February:

We received the following from Eugene Archer, who is based in France:

"Last weekend [22nd/23rd February] a coordinated count from Finistere to the Spanish border took place resulting in 21,341 dead birds and another 2,784 brought to veterinary centres. On top of that must be added several thousand dead birds counted from earlier in February and reports from fishermen etc. that there were "carpets" of dead birds still floating at sea. The vast majority were Puffins with smaller numbers of Guillemots and a lesser percentage of Razorbillsand Kittiwakes. Obviously the numbers are expected to increase in the coming days and weeks as more birds are washed ashore."