20th April 2013 - Warningcamp and Arundel WWT ~ Thérèse Goes Birding

It was a toss up between Dungeness or Pulborough Brooks, but a Glossy Ibis turning up 20 minutes from Pulborough sorted that choice out for us! It was off to Warningcamp in the glorious weather first, to look for the Ibis. A strong haze made the viewing quite hard but Stuart eventually spotted the bird popping its head up from a ditch over by the railway line. About 15 minutes later, after disappearing again, the bird came out of the ditch so we could get a better view. There were also two Oystercatcher in the field, with a couple of Blackcap and Greenfinch. A lone Moorhen in the same area as the Glossy Ibis provided us with a couple of false calls of 'there's the bird'! An incredibly noisy Swallow also flew over.

Arundel WWT was very close by so we also popped in there for a 'quick' walk. We left nearly 3 hours later. Ooops! Before we even entered the visitor centre we had a new one for the year, a very loud Sedge Warbler in the reeds outside. The Nuthatch were out in force, as we saw around 4 (for me this is a lot!) and there were plenty of Pheasant around as usual here. I embarrassed myself when I squinted at a female Reed Bunting and tried to make it into a House Sparrow but redeemed it by spotted a lovely little Wren singing at the top of its lungs. There were a couple of Lapwing hanging around, with 2 Teal and 1 Pochard. On the mammals front a tiny mouse came out to see what all the fuss was about when we were watching a Chiffchaff and Blackcap and a Water Vole was seen from the boardwalk later. An awesome sight was the second Cetti's Warbler of the year, but a much better view than the previous time. There was also a bird call that kept recurring and annoying me as I have no idea what it was. A very clear 'pew pew pew pew'. Any suggestions welcome!

Trip list: 40
Year list: 147
Lifers of year list: 15