Beardies and more Goshawks!

A Sussex Birding Mini-Trip for the morning out east for James had one particular target in mind: Bearded Tit. Despite the blowy conditions, we quickly located a flock of eight or so of these delightful birds, also known as Bearded Reedlings as they fed in some cut reeds. A fantastic bonus was a Black Redstart which appeared for a moment or two and even landed next to the car! Other highlights included stunning views of two Marsh Harriers, including a splendid adult male quartering slowly over the marsh, a distant raft of Common Scoters on the sea, a good number of Snipe and a variety of wildfowl — before we headed to our next stop...

This Black Redstart dropped in for a short while

But the Bearded Tits were the stars of the show

Every so often they'd get up and fly surprisingly high!

This male Marsh Harrier quartered the reedbeds

Pochards performed a nice fly-by

Dozens of Oystercatchers picked over the beach

...Where we watched over an extensive tract of woodland. We only had about 20 minutes to play with before we needed to head back for James to be home in time for other plans, but we managed to pull two Goshawks out of the bag as they drifted above the treeline.

One of two Goshawks seen during a short watch