birding never sleeps: My first Wheatear (14 March 2022)

Monday, 14 March 2022

My first Wheatear (14 March 2022)

The first male Wheatear of the year is perhaps my most eagerly anticipated regular birding event. My earliest to date have been:

09 March 1977: My earliest ever Wheatear was a male along the coast west of Ventnor on the Isle of Wight. It remained for several days (I also saw it on 11/12th) and was easily the highlight of a four-week residential Accountancy course (a career path I quickly gave up on).

10 March 1983. A male Wheatear seen at Farlington, Hampshire.

12 March 1994. A male Wheatear on the beach at Hove (my earliest in Sussex).

12 March 1995. A male Wheatear at Shoreham Fort.

14 March 1981. Two males Wheatears at Birling Gap.

14 March 2009. Three males Wheatears at Widewater.

14 March 2017. A male Wheatear on Southwick Beach.

and now:

male Wheatear at Shoreham Fort on 14 March 2022

Monday 14 March. I seawatched at Widewater from 07:15-08:15 seeing a distant unidentified duck (Pintail?), 2 single Common Scoter, 4 Kittiwakes, 20 Common Gulls, 3 Red-throated Divers and 9 Gannets. All were flying east. A Little Grebe was on the lagoon and 14 Turnstones and the elusive wintering Black Redstart on the groynes west of the beach huts. I met Megan and Cookie at Harbour Way and we walked along the river to the Adur Ferry Bridge and back along the boardwalk to the Fort. Halfway there I received a message that a Wheatear had been seen at the Fort making me wish we'd done our walk in reverse! There were 12 Turnstones below the wooden jetty and, still there although not immediately obvious, a male Wheatear on the Fort itself. We also saw 6 Wall Lizards at the base of the southern fortifications.

Black Redstart at Widewater

Little Egret at Widewater

male Wheatear on Shoreham Fort

female Lord Derby's Parakeet in Shoreham

male Ring-necked Parakeet in Shoreham

garden Fox

Sunday 13 March. Back home Megan and I took Cookie to Park Avenue where both the male Ring-necked and female Lord Derby's Parakeet were present.

Lord Derby's and Ring-necked Parakeets over Park Avenue, the former growing its tail.

Monday 07 March-Sunday 13 March. Megan and I took Cookie to Deal for a week where we rented a cottage by the sea. It was nice to get away but birding, what little I did, was disappointing. It was ideally placed for seawatching, could scope it quite well from the front room, except clear sunny weather made the light looking east awful. Very little was passing when I did look compared to passage off Sussex at that time. I wondered if birds continued east into the English Channel after passing Dungeness or if they continued up the Kent coast whether they passed beyond the Godwin Sands (3 miles off Deal). While at Deal we drove to Sandwich to visit Richborough Roman Fort but it was closed for major renovation. Perhaps our most enjoyable outing was catching a bus to St Margarets at Cliffe and walking back along Saxon Shore coastal path. Otherwise we stayed local to Deal. While away I saw 35 Brent Geese, Red-breasted Merganser, 28 Great Crested Grebes, a few Kittiwakes, 12 Mediterranean Gulls, 11 Red-throated and 5 unidentified Divers, 8 Fulmars, 18 Gannets, a Sparrowhawk, 6 Buzzards, Chiffchaff and 43 Chaffinches.