Crawley and Pagham (12 May 2012)

Saturday 12 May.  Not having seen a Wood Warbler since 2008 I decided those at Buchan Park, Crawley presented too good an opportunity to miss.  I picked up John King at Hickstead and we were on site by 06:45.  Two birds performed almost continually in the two hours we were there.   Despite being almost constantly on the move I did manage to get some reasonable digiscoped images, along with lots of branches two seconds too late.  the only minor disappointment was that road noise

Wood Warbler at Buchan Park, the furthest bird from the car park, pager commentary courtesy of JK

Wood Warbler at Buchan Park, the nearer bird to the car park, nothing on the pager

Digital Voice Recording - better quality than the video but the only disadvantage of Buchan Park is the road (and plane) noise

why do they always turn their heads away on the best shots

note to self: make sure you don't go 4 years before seeing another one!

Buoyed  by our success we decided to push our luck and try for the Glossy Ibis at Pagham and Rose-coloured Starling at Selsey but a reasonable search for both failed to produce a sighting, although we may only have spent 50 minutes at Selsey despite it seeming more like 3 days.  There were few migrants at Pagham but a Nightjar that had been found halfway down the west side was a rare daylight occurrence for me.  Also at Pagham we saw an Avocet, a Black-tailed Godwit, 12 Bar-tailed Godwits, 12 Whimbrel, 3 Little Terns, a vocal Cuckoo and a Cetti's Warbler.

Sedge Warbler at the North Wall, Pagham Harbour.  Note the metal ring

roosting Nightjar Pagham Harboir west side