12th and 13th January: Pulborough and Newhaven

On Saturday I devoted a good few hours to an extended patch session to try and add a few species to what has been a fairly sedate start to the year list so far. It was a relatively quiet first couple of hours but things picked up later on when a ringtail Hen Harrier flew past Hail’s View followed by a cream cap Marsh Harrier - both year ticks. A Woodcock also flew up out of Black Wood past the viewpoint - my second of the year on patch after one over the car park after work on the 8th - while two Dunlin and thirty or so Black-tailed Godwits were the best on the North Brooks. Other bits of note were a Peregrine, nine Shelduck, three Red Kites and at least a dozen Gadwall. The patch year list now stands on 73.

Of note on Sunday but sadly not seen by me were two White-fronted Geese at West Mead. The presence of at least one domesticated and ringed individual in late summer and autumn makes judging truly wild birds at Pulborough a little trickier -  perhaps these were the same two seen in December, it will be interesting to see if they stick around.

White-fronted Geese, photo by Neil Buckthorpe

On Saturday afternoon news broke of the Hume's Leaf Warbler in Newhaven, present since just after Christmas apparently, so with only around three hours' birding time available on Sunday morning I knew where I was going to be heading.

I parked up on Robinson Road just as it was getting light and wandered the short distance up to the area where the bird had been seen the previous day. I was the first birder onsite but was soon joined by others including Alastair Gray. It didn't take long before we heard the bird call - rather like a more staccato Yellow-browed Warbler with a dash of Pied Wag - and it led us a bit of a merry dance around a hundred or more square metres of dense scrub before eventually giving pretty decent views in Elders at TQ442021.

Hume's Leaf Warbler, photo by James McCulloch

Sadly I barely had chance to think about getting my camera out before it flew off and disappeared into scrub quite some distance away. Thankfully others with more time got further views of it after I left and some even managed some photos. It seems likely it'll stick around for a while yet so hopefully lots of others connect with it. Other bits of note here were at least two Cetti's Warblers, a flyover Brambling and a Magpie nest-building.