An early start and a return later in the morning produced a good selection. At the dam first thing the gull roost was breaking up and leaving, mostly flying north to feed. The flock consisted mainly of Black-headed Gulls but included personal counts of 44 Lesser Black-backed, one Great Black-backed, 16 Herring and a good 300 Common Gulls with about 1100 Black-headed Gulls. It was other than that rather quiet on the water. In the car park several Goldcrests were in song plus three Coal Tits and a Marsh Tit. Overhead two Skylarks were singing so I stood and listened for some time before leaving for the west end. Here it was more obvious that there had been an increase in the water level over the last week or so, this hadn't changed the birding much though. Another gull flock was made up of 127 Common, 130 Black-headed and a 1st year Lesser Black-backed Gull. There were still two of the Green Sandpipers, 54 Lapwing and 75 Teal. At the feeders among the tits and finches there were two Great Spotted Woodpeckers, the male was in the trees drumming. The heronry was rather busy with lots of coming and going by some splendid looking adult Grey Herons, it looks like there are 21 active nests at present. On the grassy mud a mixed of mostly Meadow Pipits, Linnets and Pied Wagtails, their numbers in order being 55, 40 and 20, six Stock Doves were also present with them. The five Tufted Ducks and Gadwall have been present for a while both including three males. A thorough search produced eleven Snipe with another seen to fly in from the south. It was at this time that the gulls spooked and I couldn't believe it was a low flying male Kestrel, sure enough it wasn't, as I looked up a lovely relaxed looking Osprey, a male I believe, flew over from the south moving off slowly to the north disappearing behind the hills along the north bank, always a great bird to see no matter how often you do. A look at Whillett's produced five Reed Buntings feeding with the small flock of Chaffinches, a small flock of Long-tailed Tits and my first Blackcap of the year. This was a far better morning than I thought it could be.

On my seventh attempt I was lucky. At long last I saw the ICELAND GULL. It was preening itself for over 1/2 hour at the entrance to the harbour this morning. Mill Creek: 30+ Redshank; 8 or 9 Dunlin. Scrub: Blackbirds, Robins, Greenfinch, Chaffinch, Skylarks (singing).

In response to the query regarding the Bar-headed Goose I can confirm that there was certainly one at Pett on 6th March. More incongruously there were two Ruddy Shelduck walking along the pavement of the main road through Horsebridge on the same afternoon.

On checking our records we saw a flock of 24 Snow Geese at Scotney on the 2nd March 2009. Assuming they are the same flock perhaps they do the same tour!

Many thanks to Lee Evans for these additional comments about the Scotney snow geese:

Phil Barnett and I have frequently seen a flock of 30-39 snow geese (including blue morphs) in Oxfordshire, most often in Blenheim Park. They appear at all times of year but more often in August and September. They clearly breed locally as they are usually accompanied by a few juveniles each autumn. There is speculation that they escaped from Richard Branson's wildfowl collection but there is no conclusive evidence of this. What is likely though is that it is a feral population. Like the introduction Common Cranes and White Storks before them, spring often sees them do a tour of duty of the UK and they have been seen as far afield as Somerset and Lancashire - what makes these feral birds move such distances is unknown.

This current flock of 31 birds is almost certainly the Blenheim Park flock from Oxfordshire, these birds being forced out during the ice to Farmoor Reservoir. In Sunday's rain, they seem to have gone haywire and decided to fly half the way round Britain. Whether or not they are now back in Oxfordshire is unknown.

The east side of the island was rather quiet, but there was 2 Little Egrets, 2 Common Buzzards, 10+ Meadow Pipits, 1 Reed Bunting, 2 Kestrels and 10+ Lapwing displaying on one of the rough fields near Pilsey. At marker point there was a nice flock of 60+ Sanderling. Further north along the west side I found 1 Greenshank, 13 Black-tailed Godwits (inlcuding one which had legs rings) on the mud flats and 14 Mergansers, 1 Goldeneye and a redhead Smew all on the various channels in Sussex. The Smew was mainly quite distant but did come closer to me at 14.40 and then disappeared at 14.50. There was also 4 Little Grebes on the Little Deep.

A treat today as a Sparrowhawk found his lunch in the bush right next to me - I even heard the whoosh as it passed me. I think it killed a rabbit as I heard the squeals. After 5 minutes, the raptor flew into a nearby tree. Also seen today was a Buzzard, a crow seeing off a Peregrine, Kestrel, Heron, Cormorant and a single Reed Bunting.

A distinctly pale grey/white goose with a large flock of assorted other geese around 5pm this afternoon was presumably an escaped/feral Bar-headed Goose.

Two untagged Red Kites were soaring over Thorney Deeps from 11.40 to 11.50. They then flew high. One was a first calendar year bird with an inner primary missing on the left wing which flew E. The other was a second calendar year bird which flew W towards Emsworth.

The Yellow-browed Warbler still lurking in the bushes today - seen both on my lunchbreak (between 12 and 1pm) and on way home after work at (5.30pm). Photo attached and on my website 

The 31 snow geese which appeared at Scotney Pit on 3rd March were also seen on 2nd March at 14.00 circling Itchen Valley CP (Hants) before heading east. What was presumably the same flock (34 inc four blue morph birds) was seen at Farmoor Reservoir, Oxon on 25th September 2011. More details here

As to whether they are tickable or not, the following comment appeared on BirdForum today relating to the Kent hooded merganser of unknown origin:

All this talk about ticking. There are no rules. Just go out and enjoy yourselves. Sod what other people think.

The PADDYFIELD WARBLER showing well on and off by the second bench along the North Wall at Pagham Harbour 09.50 - 10.30. Also a water rail and the aberrant brent goose. Later two Slavonian grebes and a Sandwich tern off Pagham Beach. Shag at Selsey Bill and a great northern diver and two common scoter off Selsey West Beach. (Paul James, Jan Jupp & Andrew Killick).

At Ternery Pool today, amongst hundreds of small gulls there were at least 35 Sandwich terns and the regular spotted redshank (which is of course less spotted than the common redshanks that are now coming into breeding plumage).

Having just finished giving the lawn its' first trim of the season I glanced upwards to see a Red Kite drifting NW over the house. A delight to see and unmistakable with its forked tail.

Seventeen ruff and a single dunlin performing well in front of West Mead hide this afternoon. Up to eight buzzards high over/nr the reserve displaying in the good weather at various times. Pink-footed goose still present on the north brooks this morning, with ca. 10 greylags.

On a walk from Seaford seafront to Newhaven Tidemills a single swallow flying low westward over the shingle beach. At the Tidemills a couple of dunlin.

The YELLOW-BROWED WARBLER was still showing well and calling frequently from the small pine tree next to the Swan pub in High Street, Worthing this morning.

A couple of hours this morning was enough; none of yesterday's activity for me I'm afraid. The regular wader flocks of Grey Plover, Oystercatcher, Turnstone and Sanderling were all along the beach but nothing seemed to be moving at sea. A flock of 20 Curlew were feeding in fields and a pair of Stonechats in the horse paddock was a surprise; two Goldcrests were singing, whilst a lone drake Pintail on the sea was bird of the day for me! It felt like spring with sunshine, daffodils and birdsong but there were no 'real' early migrants to be seen. Won't be long!!

Living as we do on the seafront at Ferring, we do get the occasional Pheasant strolling up the drive, but a Red-leg on the seafront lawn was quite exceptional.

A/The flock of 30+ (inc 3 blue phase) Snow Geese appeared over Winchelsea Beach at 07.55 and flew W up the Pannel Valley. They were quite distant for an accurate count and although I got a (terrible) photo the flock's too bunched to clarify matters. On March 1st 2009 I saw a flock of 24 flying NE along the Pett Level shore, which prompted me to ask similar questions to those posed by David Potter. Lee Evans kindly threw some light on the matter in a helpful note which I now can't find.