Saturday 5 January 2013

Worthing Beach

I've been looking forward to going to Worthing Beach for ages, apparently there are some good birds out on the sea there; Red-Throated Divers, Razorbill etc...  So despite the weather my mother and I headed out on the train. When we got off at Brighton to change onto the Worthing train I was surprised to see hundreds of Football fans waiting in a fenced off area.  
 From Worthing station it was a 5-10 minute walk to the beach were at first there seemed to be nothing but Black-headed Gulls!  After 10 minutes of walking I heard the piping calls of Oystercatcher and saw a flock alight in the distance! Nearby a Crow was constantly cawing so I thought it would be rude not to photograph it!


Soon the Turnstones flew by; disturbed by Dog-walkers and disappeared back along the beach behind us.  As we continued another flock flew by us; this consisted of Sanderling!  They alighted further up the beach and there were exactly 20 in the flock!  I did eventually after much error and little trial get close enough to a group of four  to get an image but that was still a bit distant for a good image, especially in the little light allowed by heavy grey cloud.


We continued even further up the beach, and, flying not far away over the water was a stocky looking gull I identified as a Mediterranean Gull!  Not a very good picture but it shows the stockiness, white wings, heavy bill and eye marking which define this species.


On the way back I saw a couple more species of gull: Herring, Common and Greater Black-backed, and on the way to the station I saw a small bird disappear over a roof and heard the characteristic call of a Pied Wagtail, this took my Year-list up to 40!  

 Yesterday we went to the Golf-course, there was not much to see but I saw some Goldfinches and a Rabbit!  I quite liked this shot that I got.



Also in the morning I was walking to the kitchen to make some breakfast when I saw something moving on the feeder, I realised it was the G-s Woodpecker and grabbed the camera and snuck up to the window, I managed a fairly decent shot through the glass.  Although rather unlike me I did slightly change the curves to this image.  I wonder if this is the same female who visited my feeders last year?



Sorry the shots aren't that good, there just doesn't seem to be a break in the clouds!

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