Sitting here in the midst of another heatwave looking back to what is normally expected to be the peak month of Spring migration seems a long time ago, but those cool northerly winds which seemed to continue through most of May would be very welcome now.
By May most of the regular summer arrivals have moved quickly on to their breeding territories in northern Britain or Scandinavia, but the month often delivers a scarcity or two and local birdwatchers wistfully daydream of finding an exotic rarity such as a Bee-eater, Shrike or a decent wader. Meanwhile traditionally the start of May is regarded as the peak time for up channel movements of Pomarine Skua as the climax of the sea watching season.
Rarities and Scarcities
So what happened this year ………… well to be honest not a lot as the previously mentioned cool winds were stuck in the northerly direction and failed to deliver any birds of note. A few rarities made it to Sussex with highlights being a male Eastern Subalpine Warbler at Beachy Head and two “spotty” Spotted Sandpipers on the River Ouse but locally we missed out.
The closest we came was a Golden Oriole heard singing in Tottington Woods, Small Dole on Saturday 16th May a couple of kilometres NE of our 10km boundary.
A Black Kite found by James Grundy at Amberley on 25th May was outside our area but was heading south so may have crossed into our airspace, but it probably didn’t. More expectedly there was a good movement of Red Kites over the weekend of 23/24th May with 71e over Angmering on the Saturday being noteworthy, although why we get these Spring coastal movements is not really understood. .
June can also sometimes delivery a rarity but it didn’t and even an exceptional national influx of Quail, which we normally do reasonably well for on our local downland, managed to evade us until a bird was reported singing from fields north of Cissbury car park on 21st June.
Seawatching
So did skua passage save May - well no!
Near perfect conditions on Friday 1st May saw an expectant crowd waiting at Marine Gardens hoping the light south easterly winds would deliver, and although it started promisingly with Arctic Skuas (5e before 07:00) after that just Barwits 62e, Whimbrel 40e, Grey Plover 2e, Sanderling 10e, Common Tern 1e, Sandwich Tern 90e Kittiwake 1e, Rt Diver 2e, C Scoter 173e, Brent Goose 62e.
Finally a distant Pom Skua was seen heading east at 10:20 when only two observers remained which was also tracked past Worthing Pier.
Watches continues until 12th May but this proved to be the only Pomarine Skua reported from Worthing in May and the only further skuas seen were Arctic (3e on 7/5 & 2e on 9/5).
Just when it looked like the seawatching season would end without a Little Tern being reported James Grundy saved the day recording a single bird heading east past Goring Gap on the evening of 11th May.
And that folks was it for the spring as we moved into summer with focus switching inland to the Sussex Heaths for Nightjars and Honey Buzzards, whilst Swifts screamed over the town and dare I say it some people started to turn their attention towards insects!
