Thanks to Gary for his report and photos from Tuesday.
Would you believe it, another hot and sunny day at Pulborough Brooks.
First stop was West Mead to see if the little stint was present from the day before, but alas not. However, as compensation a greenshank was walking around in the diminishing pool of water and a party of four stonechat moved back and forth on the thistles. Further out, a pale buzzard and at least twenty yellow wagtails were amongst the cattle.
Moving on to the appropriately named Redstart Corner, a flicky tailed redstart popped into view and then a spotted flycatcher. Then something very odd happened, a juvenile wren which still had a slight yellow gape, begged to be fed from the redstart several times. The redstart seemed a little confused at first and then drove the young wren off. Further along the hedge line two further redstarts and several whitethroats – at last after a few quiet weeks a nice selection of migrants are starting to appear.
Continuing the circuit near Winpenny, clouded yellow butterflies gave a good view, but once again like last week they were too aware of me to get close enough with my mobile for a photo. Crossing the public footpath I got a better view of the two redstarts seen earlier, plus a nice clean lesser whitethroat.
The North Brooks still have a reasonable amount of water and this was obviously bringing in the usual suspects on the wildfowl front together with some waders in the form of a greenshank, three green sandpipers and a rather distant wood sandpiper. Luckily the size and colour difference could be seen as they shared the same small patch of mud. All this was being watched over by the peregrine from its usual perch in the willow tree. Later when the peregrine decided to disappear, two noisy kestrels took a liking to the tree as well.
Back at West Mead a red kite made a brief visitation and a very small wader made two fly-bys but unfortunately right in the sun, so its identity will remain unknown.