Not the worst winds weve experienced here, with a relatively calm afternoon permitting 90 mins of seawatching. Birds passing W before dusk were 39 Gannets, 2 Brent Geese, 2 Fulmars, 4 Red-throated Divers and an unusual 5 Lesser Black-backed Gulls.

There were at least 9 Purple Sandpipers on the East Pier at Newhaven on Friday 6th December probing with their bills into the centres of barnacles.

Pretty quiet again! A couple of hours from dawn produced 15 Kittiwakes, 7 Common Gulls, 38 auks, 5 Gannets, a Fulmar and a Red-throated Diver W.

A Red Admiral & Small Tortoiseshell in the garden (Beachy Head) late morning. 

If you provide the habitat, the birds will appear! Three fields on Knowlands Farm between Barcombe Cross and Knowlands Wood have been planted with wild bird cover crops. This morning, there were about 300 Linnets in Hopgarden Field just south of the south-west corner of Knowlands Wood with an almost deafening amount of twittering when they landed in nearby trees. There were also about 100 Chaffinches. Over the past week or so, the fields have also contained two Bramblings (though difficult to locate among the ever-moving flocks of Chaffinches) and a few Greenfinches, Yellowhammers and Reed Buntings plus about 200 Woodpigeons. Needless to say, the finch flocks have attracted the attention of both a Kestrel and a Sparrowhawk.

Five members met at the Puffing Billy car park on Hayling Island for a walk around the Oysterbeds and Langstone Harbour. I guess the weather forecast prevented some members turning out, albeit it never rained despite the leaden skies, the wind made birding difficult. On the foreshore Dunlin, Grey Plover, Curlew and Turnstone were busy feeding as were Brent Geese. On the Oysterbeds a tight flock of 8 magnificent Goldeneye showed well with a similar number of Red-breasted Merganser. A wintering Greenshank flew in and showed well. From the observation point looking into Langstone Harbour it was not easy scanning with a scope with little on show on the choppy sea but in the poor visibility we could make out waders swirling around in the far gloom. Moving to a more sheltered position with the tide coming in we had plenty of Dunlin feeding close by with Brent Geese moving around and as we returned to the cars a huge flock of Brents came from the east calling and landed in front of the car park eagerly feeding on the saltmarsh. We moved onto the east end of the island and birded around the mouth of Chichester Harbour and along the shoreline around Black Point. The wader roost held a huge count of Dunlin say a 1000 birds with smaller numbers of Grey Plover, 150 Ringed Plover and 40 Sanderling, we stayed close to the shoreline to avoid flushing the waders only to have a lone windsurfer spook the waders up in a frenzy! The waders soon settled down after a superb aerial display moving around in a tight flock twisting and turning. Offshore we found a wintering Sandwich Tern sitting on one of the buoys, a common sight in the harbour nowadays. For over an hour we scanned the waters for any grebes and failed miserable despite the Red-necked Grebe that had showed earlier in the day. A Great Northern Diver flew north west and was followed by a second diver going in the same direction. The second diver looked smaller and I wondered if it might be a Black-throated Diver as we lost it the in the gloom. Returning to our cars we all enjoyed the days birding in windy conditions and everyone appreciated the new venue into Hampshire. P.S. A Black-throated Diver was seen later in the pm off Sweare Deep, North Hayling!

Little Egret in trees on main lake. Also Red Admiral and probable female Vagrant Emperor at Titmus lake.

Five Cattle Egrets with the Little Egrets and sheep in the field opposite Gribble Lane in Oving.

West Beach Promenade, Newhaven: Black Redstart, Caspian P:36V, Great Black-backed JC922 & Stonechat.

Eight Ruff, on the marshy grassland behind the western pool, with 260 Lapwing, 2+ Dunlin and 4 Redshank. One of the Ruff had conspicuous white on the head and neck.