White-crowned Sparrow at Hope Gap in Seaford

Yesterday we headed down to Seaford in East Sussex where a White-crowned Sparrow has been reported since Saturday. It's been elusive since Saturday but having dipped one in Cheshire back in 2016 I was determined to take the chance of moving this bird off my dipped list. We arrived at 8am and quickly found the area the bird has favoured. The crowd of twenty birders/twitchers had split with some watching from the centre path some from the top path and some watching the area that had been seeded the previous evening. At about 9am Alex B saw the bird and although I was stood next to him I couldn't react fast enough to get on it. The next sighting was at 12.15 whilst we'd taken a short break for drinks. We sat it out at the seed from 1pm until 3pm but after seven hours on site we headed home. The bird came to the seed at 4.30pm and visited frequently all evening. 

We added Rock Pipit and Lesser Whitethroat to the year list whilst at Seaford.

This morning after being gripped off by all the images on the socials I called Jim and told him I was going back today. He was up and ready but Dad didn't have the energy after yesterdays jaunt. We left at 7am and arrived shortly after 9am and this time as we joined the small crowd we were delighted to see the Sparrow sitting out in the open waiting for us. We watched it for another hour or so and managed to get some images as it came to seed every fifteen minutes or so but would often be obscured and remained quite skulking at times.  A walk down to the sea gave us a bonus year tick when Jim found a female Common Redstart. 

White-crowned Sparrow

White-crowned Sparrow

White-crowned Sparrow

White-crowned Sparrow

White-crowned Sparrow

White-crowned Sparrow

White-crowned Sparrow

On the drive home we made the three mile diversion to Thorndon CP paid the £2.50 for an hours parking and walked down to the lake. Luckily other birders had the Night Heron in their scopes or we may have struggled to find it as the bird was in deep cover and very obscured. Good to see Dave and Matt there but we didn't hang around too long as the bird was asleep and my sofa was calling me.

a nice fly over at Seaford

The Night Heron....honest!

Thorndon CP

Hope Gap (a very mobile Redstart in those bushes)

The seven sisters...very fitting as I'm one of seven brothers 

Year list now 183

Life list now 438

catching up

I haven't blogged since 13th March so thought I'd do a quick catch up.

As is usual now my time has been divided into caring for Suzanne, the grandchildren and the father in law and continued to help my youngest with landscaping and maintaining the garden of his new home but I have done some birding on the rare days off.

I dipped an Alpine Swift on the patch at Fishers Green on 24th March but year ticked Sand Martin.

Silver Wood Duck still surviving in the valley

A yellow-billed Pintail keeping the Wood duck company

The 25th March saw us travel down the A13 to Tilbury where we connected with the Green-winged Teal and added our first Little-ringed Plovers of the year too.

7th April and we had a morning at Abberton which allowed us to year tick Yellow Wagtail with at least twenty birds around the farm. A male Blackcap was a first for the year and a single Common Tern was also a year tick. We also saw another pair of LRP.

On 10th April I headed down to Devon to spend a few days with the grandchildren. A lovely week with very limited time outside playing with them but I did stop at Labrador bay on the way down where I saw a Cirl Bunting and my first Swallow of the year. On the 12th I managed another view of Cirl Bunting at Broadsands and a Shag at Brixham whilst playing pirates with George.

The 22nd saw me laying turf at my sons and allowed me to year tick House Martin.

A couple of hours at Lee Valley on 23rd was enjoyable allowing us to tick Cuckoo, Nightingale, Sedge and Reed Warbler along with  Whitethroat and Swift also new for 2013.

24th and we had an hour at Wanstead where we managed to find ten Wheatear, a Whinchat and a Willow Warbler but we failed to see the Little Owls again.

The year list at this point is just 178