southeast wind and rain and no passage this morning, but looking at what the wind's doing down channel i suspected this would be the case. it's looking much better later in the week... xcweather and metcheck both showing perfect wind throughout the channel from thursday through to sunday (typically bbc is contradicting this), we'll see...

april is only a week away but i had to scrape ice off the windscreen this morning, something i didn't have to do once the whole winter! decent conditions for a seawatch so i popped down to beachy in the afternoon and saw 8 little gulls, 10 kittiwakes (likely migrant flock), 10 gannets, 21 sandwich terns, 22 red-throated divers, and 23 brents east and a dozen great crests on the sea. after 90 mins i was too cold/bored to stay any longer.

it was t-shirt weather down the cuckmere today. on this day last year however     

- a different story

4 black redstarts at newhaven tide mills today, the adult male was singing quietly

the aptly named lesser spotted woodpecker, the press would have a field day over this one. seen in the same trees where i saw my first, 16 years ago, good to know they are still hanging on in this wood.

a marsh harrier lingering high over west rise this afternoon was surprisingly a site tick. also the pair of bearded tits still there and the pied wag flock has built up to around 60 birds but i could only spot a single white wag. yesterday a visit to the cuckmere failed to produce any migrant birds but there were some mullet in the river. things are happening.

white wag at west rise today. on 7th i visited the usual sites between dunge and rye. saw the hume's warbler, glauc and glossy ibis at dunge. was good to catch up with a few species that i didn't see at all last year - tree sparrow, scaup, ruff and spotshank.

 just like the good old days at scotney. well....

rye is so good these days. even the hides are dog friendly