A beautiful late summer's morning

North Wall, Pagham Harbour on a morning like this is hard to beat!
Whites Creek was alive with waders but the most interesting to me were three Spotted Redshanks...always  very photographic subjects...

Superb birds!

A couple of Common Sandpipers were by the sluice....

...and further along a Greenshank, many Redshanks, Lapwings, a Grey Plover and, as a bonus, a fast flying Kingfisher.
Way out on the mudflats a party of Knot and Dunlin...a poor highly cropped record shot..

Back on the beach dozens of Painted Ladies adorn the buddleia

 A few of them looking quite tatty....

... but most in good condition

Here, a single small tortoiseshell




A late afternoon stroll along the spit turned up a 'tortoishell' (almost summer plumaged) Turnstone feeding on grubs in the seaweed in the Little Lagoon

Lastly, this is one of five Wheatears on the spit balancing on the fence wire....the wind has got up again!!

Someone mentioned Whinchats early this morning but certainly no trace now (5.00pm)

A day to remember....

August 16 2016...a fantastic minute (08.37 to be precise), in fact less than a minute when an Aquatic Warbler showed itself just a few metres away on the top of a hawthorn near Owl Point Pagham Harbour!
Here are two of the uncropped shots of that memorable morning...

....and these are two cropped shots

...for a split second it fanned its tail.

So this morning I thought a return visit to the very spot would be appropriate. Going via the Halsey Farm entrance to check on the Squacco Heron I was disappointed on a 'no show'. However there were 3 Cattle Egrets in the trees bounding the 'favoured field' but little else.

A distant shot of one of the three Cattle Egrets 

But at Owl Point, not even a warbler of any kind...so no repeat of the excitement of 3 years ago.

*****************

Here are a few shots of a visit to the harbour on August 6...

Coming down the rife.

An odd looking leucistic Starling...
when at first seen I thought it was going to be a Yellow Wagtail considering the company it was keeping.

Wheatear on North Wall

Oystercatcher involved in dirty work.

Grey Plover close to the North wall

...in stunning summer plumage...great!

Little Egret with small fry.

Here's hoping for a good Autumn migration...I've already dipped out on the Osprey that's been around for a few days!

Squacco Heron...success at last!

7.00am at the North Wall and there it was circling the field just south of Halsey Farm. Managed to secrete myself behind the bushes and slowly it emerged from a dry ditch through the tall grass....stalking grasshoppers. Not an easy subject to photograph due to distance and the long grass but here are a few shots of the many taken.

At least a record of a UK tick for me and a first for the Selsey Peninsular records book.
A bonus came when two Cattle Egrets decided to join the Squacco...

An unusual sight for Pagham ...from left to right...Squacco Heron(typical view in long grass), Little Egret and two Cattle Egrets.
Just to add to the excitement a Kingfisher was flying up and down the rife to the left of me.

A good morning.

 Later in the morning back at base a Green Woodpecker visited the bird bath and after drinking decided on a bath.

Clean but a little bedraggled.

Today has been one of those days of not being at the right place at the right time having spent 2 hours this morning and another 2 hours this afternoon waiting to catch a glimpse of the Squacco Heron. On both occasions I was told I "should have been here 10 minutes ago!" Tomorrow is another day but I only have a short window of opportunity early in the day.
During the week I have been keeping an eye out for early migrants and on Friday did find my first 2 returning Wheatears on Pagham Spit. We also had 5 Willow Warblers  and a Blackcap in a birch tree in the garden on Thursday so I thought the North Wall would be good but I could only find a single Whitethroat!

 A Magpie was deciding which way to go

 ...and the 2 Cattle Egrets were on the high tide roost site.

Wader numbers are increasing and a few small mixed flocks (Dunlin and Turnstone) were  wheeling around at high tide.

Today the Egret roost held good numbers of Little Egrets plus the now usual Cattle Egrets...but no Squacco!

 Butterflies were the highlight on the beach with scores of Painted Ladies visiting the buddleia.

Hopefully the Squacco will remain until I can 'tick' it!