Short-eared owl at cuckmere haven which landed on the shingle ridge. my earliest by a month. decent fall of willow warblers in the area but no variety, only 4 sp of warbler best being 5 garden in hope gap. took the rod too...

a short seawatch at beachy produced 8 manx and an arctic skua and several porpoises

today at west rise 1 green sand and 1 blackwit. yesterday 1 common sand, 3 blackwits and a juv ylg.

this one photo'd at princes park. wasn't interested in bread and soon flew off

been away on hols for a week but west rise got a bit of coverage during that time with records of spoonbill, 6 black-tailed godwits, 5 green sands and 2 lrp's. today there were single green and common sands, 2 dunlin and 3 blackwits plus ad+juv ylg

visits to west rise in june:

4th: first adult med gull on return passage
5th: 2 black-tailed godwits
18th: cuckoo, hobby and teal
20th: 2 pochards
24th: 2 red-veined darters and a curlew (patch tick i think)
26th: first sand martin (this is what i associate the start of autumn with, last year was on 13th!)

in july:

1st: a proper summer day - baking hot, tons of meadow browns, first flying ant event, a few black-headed and med gulls coming through, 5 egrets (numbers of herons+egrets building up now post-breeding), a curlew over, first juv big gull which was a lesser black-back and not the expected yellow-leg
2nd: a gorgeous black spotted redshank. think i've only seen this plumage on spotshank once before at elmley, many years ago? also the first clouded yellow
3rd: 2 little ringed plovers, first juv herring and black-headed gulls and a family party of greylags (from shinewater)
4th: redshank, teal, juvenile yellow-legged gull
5th: black-tailed godwit, 2 lrp's and 3 redshanks
6th: spoonbill (long awaited patch tick), blackwit, 4 common sands, 1 green sand
7th: spoonbill still - together with 12 herons and 5 egrets it looked more like titchwell. blackwit still
8th: spoonbill which flew off west

dispatching an emperor dragonfly

elsewhere a green sand and common sand down the cuckmere on 29th june

sometime in the late 90s i was stood at shibdon pond hoping for a repeat performance from the 27 (?) beeeeaters that flew over the previous evening. can't believe it's taken me until now to see this species in the uk, one of the few remaining 'common' gaps, but what a way to do it.