a wood warbler was at hollingbury in the morning. this evening i vistied arlington, where there was very little, and lewes brooks where the great white egret (just one) showed well. its lores are a velvety blue/purple up close, and those legs! i know they dont get much attention nowadays but its cetainly a looker- the best one ive seen.

a summer plumaged great white egret was found on lewes brooks this afternoon. i havent adjusted the colours, its legs really were that red! theres a vid on my youtube channel.

yday: an excellent seawatch at splash point from 8:30am-7:45pm recorded the following:

manx shear 20
black tern 6 ( incl. a flock of four which flew high inland)
little tern 36
pom 6
velvet scoter 2 ( pres. same also seen at worthing and dung)
black throated diver 32 (better than poms in sum plum- a close group of 5 was just awesome)
bonxie 155
little gull 187
arctic skua 98

i didnt bother counting gannets or commics. also a presume harbour porpoise still. i even surprised myself staying all day, i tend not to have the patience but yday was different. it had quiet times but birds seemed to arrive in waves whenever there was a distant rain shower out to the west. 60 little gulls went thru at 7:15pm just ahead of a rain front heading inshore . i even managed to beat dung on most species!. many thanks to ron knight for the sandwich!! i was starving. think ive got a few vids so ill upload some soon.

was gutted that i had to work today as the forecast looked great. i finally managed to slack it off by 11:30 and headed to arlington expecting big things. actually there was bugger all. i then decided to hit splash point and was again expecting to see quite a bit but it was dead! i stuck it out and once the rain had finally cleared, birds started to move through and commics were the theme. totals between 12:45 and 7:45pm:

commic tern 1917 (lots of both arctic and common and including tightish flocks of 250, 200 and 160 which rose high in the sky and off out of sight, something that many of the flocks were doing. it was great)
little gull 19
bonxie 11
little tern 2
arctic skua 60 (some of which went right overhead inland presumably cutting off seaford head)
manx 2
pom 4
med gull 9 (4 pairs and 2nd sum)
sanderling? 1
puffin 1
black tern 2 (one very close in)
sandwich tern 25

i really had to leave when i did, arctic skuas and commics hadnt stopped coming thru by then. annoying, could of got 2000+.

shit quality but you get the idea.

highlight of the day were 13 little gulls at arlington. 8 were stunning adults with gorgeous pink fused underparts and and were just brilliant to watch. around eastbourne the jack snipe lingers on and a 2nd cal yr caspian gull was roosting in fields. west rise is currently closed due to dog/sheep incidents.

a late-ish jack snipe, green sand and water pipit were around eastbourne.

despite the unsettled conditions still very quiet at the res. the only thing worth mentioning was a constant arrival and departure of hundreds of gulls (mainly 1st sum common) all arriving from very high in the sky ahead of some very dark skies. it felt good for osprey so waited around longer than usual but no show. i then went down the cuckmere where the first bird i saw whilst still in the pub car park was an osprey, nice. also a hobby flew low over the scrape.