Pulborough, 27th-29th April

Despite May being just a couple of days away, and the summer migrants making their presence known, the weather seemingly has other ideas. The northeasterly wind made it almost unbearable to spend more than a few minutes at the Hanger this evening and there's apparently a month's worth of rain to come tomorrow with a chance of sleet or wet snow. It's certainly been one of the worst springs I can remember.

The weather is clearly continuing to slow up some migration but it does seem at least as though the shift in wind direction has forced more stuff down that would have otherwise cruised straight overhead in the finer, southerly-dominated conditions of a week or so ago. The biggest surprise recently was the Turtle Dove that flew low over Adder Alley towards Redstart Corner at 06:30 on Friday morning during an otherwise fairly quiet pre-work walk around. Needless to say a new addition to my Pulborough list. Let's hope the great work the RSPB has been doing to encourage this species persuades it to stick around. Waders of note on Friday were six Black-tailed Godwits and four Common Sandpipers on the North Brooks.

A couple of hours on Saturday morning produced my second new Pulborough bird in the form of a drake Pochard on the North Brooks. Quite a surprise to see given how much the water levels have dropped recently. A Hobby powering across in front of the Hanger was my first of the year while the best of the waders were a single Common Sandpiper and the long staying Avocet pair.

Pochard

Two rather brief visits on Sunday produced a total of 69 species, the highlight being a smart male Whinchat with two Wheatears on the North Brooks, found by Shane Burtenshaw - my 130th species here this year. Other bits of note were singles of Dunlin and Avocet on the North Brooks, two Great White Egrets in front of Winpenny late afternoon and increasing numbers of hirundines and Swifts - maximum counts of each as follows: Swift 7+, Swallow 15+, House Martin 10+, Sand Martin 50.

Great White Egrets

Undoubtedly the star performers of the weekend though were the Tawny Owls along the seasonal path near West Mead with first a single fluffy juvenile found yesterday morning which was joined by a second later in the day, then an adult alongside them today. It's not often you get such great views of this common but elusive species.