Thanks to Gary for enduring the rain and for his report and photos...
The curse of the Tuesday rain struck again; this time with added wind. At least it was a southerly wind making it quite warm for a December day – unfortunately this meant it was blowing straight into West Mead and Winpenny hides making viewing fairly unpleasant. At West Mead, black-tailed godwits were huddled together and you could pick out two ruff among them. Several godwits had colour rings, but as they were standing in the water it was very tricky to get a good view. After some time I managed to get five different combinations (picture attached of one).
A little grebe and a tufted duck were rather unusual for Pulborough and made a pleasant change from the usual, but still beautiful teal and wigeon.
Just to prove how odd the weather is, on the way to Nettleys hide a brimstone butterfly fluttered past and hid in the brambles. Being the same colour as the dying leaves it was extremely difficult to find, but I guess thats the point! Not sure what its going to do when the leaves finally drop.
At Nettleys, it was more sheltered from the wind and in consequence some of the smaller birds were present in the form of stonechats, reed buntings, linnets, bullfinches, redwing (but no fieldfare), treecreeper and long-tailed tits. Several snipe were typically elusive, including one just inside the woodland the black-tailed godwits had moved around from west mead but were once again standing in water up to their bellies making ring checking all but impossible. Not the best of days for birdwatching, but still plenty to see and nice people to talk to. Merry Christmas.