RXwildlife Sightings

A noisy flock of c80 buzzing, wheezing Siskins was feeding in the Alders on the NW side of the wood, close to the ponds. They are very easy to locate and see, and are accompanied by c40 Goldfinches. As I stood beneath them, a fine drizzle of seeds was pattering off my notebook and birds were fearlessly shinning down twigs to drink from the stream.
In the same area were several Chaffinches and a flock of 10 Long-tailed Tits with single Marsh Tit & Goldcrest tagging along.
A flock of 20 Meadow Pipits & 5 Pied Wagtails was probing the field to the west.
2 Song Thrushes were singing by Pickham Mill.

Mistle Thrush in song and GS Woodpecker drumming.
2 Little Egrets along the Doleham Stream.
C50 Teal +14 Shoveler + 6 Wigeon.
Peregrine - a beautiful pale bird first announced by a rattling crow as it swooped into a stand of orange willows & later seen marching about on a muddy, grazed-out turnip field with a resentful Common Gull bouncing off its head.

Happy Christmas everyone!

The shingle recycling lorries will stop running on 23rd December and resume on 9th January, so there will be a few weeks of relative peace and quiet on the Beach Reserve at Rye Harbour.

High tide today produced a small roost of waders including: 4 Black-tailed Godwit, 15 Redshank, 8 Curlew, 11 Dunlin, 3 Snipe and a Green Sandpiper. Yesterday a good count of 66 Shoveler was made on the reserve.

On the field behind the Pools were 2 Bar-tailed Godwit & 8 Ruff. The latter are easy to distinguish from Redshank in the same field because one has a white neck and another a white head. The Ruff were later in the field at the eastern end.
Offshore, 18 Red-throated Divers >W, 100 Common Scoter, 1 Guillemot & 200 Great Crested Grebes (277 on Sunday)

46sp here this morning. 3 Dartford Warblers - 2 at extreme eastern edge, 1 by Warren Cottage.
Westerly migrants included 27 Fieldfares, 4 Redwings & 1 Skylark. Siskins were going in both directions and totalled 70, with 50 in one eastbound flock.
On setaside there was a big flock of c400 Woodpigeons, with another 100 further over. At least 10 Reed Buntings in the same field. They used to occur here only on migration.

Highlights today so far: Marsh harrier, seven Cetti’s warblers (ARC site), female goosander (New Diggings), at least seven red-head smew on New Excavations.

Set-a-sides in the vicinity have attracted a good number of Tree Sparrow and Reed Bunting in recent weeks with at least a hundred of each. Sixty plus Stock Dove are also present. Interestingly, both Rook and Jackdaw have learnt to hang onto the sunflower stalks in order to feed on the seeds.

38 species seen this morning including Grey Wagtail, 12 Marsh Tits, 25 Siskins & 9 Crossbills.

A Peacock butterfly was flying in my sunny Rye Harbour garden at lunch time today.