Twelve members joined Jim Weston on a walk along the east side of Pagham Harbour and round to the Harbour entrance. It was a generally quiet morning and other than Swallows, Sand Martins and Swifts no migrants were seen. A total of 13 wader species was recorded including 2 Greenshanks, 2 Spotted Redshanks, 2 Grey Plover in breeding plumage and 1 Bar-tailed Godwit. Close to the Harbour entrance was a group of 15 Great Crested Grebes. A total of 41 species was recorded. (Jim Weston).

This morning the Wheatear still on its groyne (pic), the pair of Little Grebe still in their bright, breeding attire, a Common Sandpiper and, offshore, four Sandwich Tern.

This is a summary of a few Storrington garden birds over the past 10 days or so. Ravens have been much in evidence over this period of time, mostly juveniles from a nearby successful nest. Interestingly they don't call much and my neighbour's Herring Gulls seem to leave them alone, in contrast to any Buzzard that dares to come close-by. My local pair of Buzzards have had two young this year and they are habitually noisy as they expect mum and dad to continue to feed them. Last week there were two Mistle Thrushes on the back lawn, which were most probably migrants. Also a Willow Warbler briefly stopped by. This week three Swallows on the 14th flew through, followed by a Sand Martin (all migrants). Then a "first" for the garden when a Stock Dove alighted on the bird bath but was soon dis-possessed by a much larger Woodpigeon. The other "first" was a juvenile Bullfinch which landed on the bird-feeder but as the mesh is very fine it soon flew on. I see an adult pair of Bullfinches several times every year but a juvenile is a garden first.

Hobby seen at Roedean.

After most of yesterday was written off by the rain, today’s sunny start provided a very welcome contrast on Black Down. The clear skies overnight perhaps meant that few migrants stopped here, but still included 1+ Willow Warblers, 8+ Chiffchaffs, 1 Whitethroat, 1 Wheatear, a very brief glimpse of a probable Redstart (1 seen well yesterday afternoon) and a single Tree Pipit. Hirundine passage was surprisingly light, but did include two Sand Martins - so the five or six birds seen so far in 2018 make it a record year for this species here! A much better day for raptors of course, with 1 Kestrel, 1 Hobby and about 20 Buzzards. The juvenile female Goshawk first seen on the 15th was still present, and put on a good show both soaring and in level flight before disappearing to the south. The regular pair of Ravens flew north along the ridge, up to six Dartford Warblers were seen, and two recently fledged Stonechats were surely the last brood this year?

A lovely day walking the perimeter path at Thorney which started well with a Lesser Whitethroat as we walked from the car park through to the west wall. In the harbour there were 5 Greenshanks, a Spotted Redshank and a few Black-tailed Godwits. The Great Deep was very quiet with only a single Great Crested Grebe. At Marker Point we spotted an Osprey out in the harbour as it caught its' lunch and then flew to a post to devour it. Also at Marker Point 4 Yellow Wagtails flew in to feed around the cattle.There were a few Whimbrel about and we saw 65+ Grey Plover and 17+ Ringed Plovers. While down on Longmere Point we found an adult and 3 juvenile Little Terns in with some Sandwich and Common Terns. As we walked back north we saw 13 Brent Geese on Nutbourne Marsh reserve. However, you will note that we didn't see many passerines at all, it was very, very quiet on the island itself but still a great day.

A red-ringed Mediterranean Gull at the gull loaf just south of Arundel this morning was presumably the same Hungarian-ringed bird HE43 present both yesterday and on July 12. Other repeat business included a Hobby that took the same twisting route along the riverside hedgerows as three days earlier, presumably in pursuit of the same flock of Linnets. Other species of note included 119 Lapwings, eight Common Sandpipers, two Kingfishers, 12 Reed Warblers, two Sedge Warblers, three Whitethroats and one each of Willow Warbler and Cetti's Warbler.

Amazingly, eight SOS members (who surely couldn't have seen the forecast) joined me for a walk around the Sussex Wildlife Trust reserve at Burton Mill Pond on Thursday. We probably wouldn't have got any wetter if we just leapt into the pond from the offset. The downpour lasted the entire walk and I can't actually recall seeing many birds at (you know you're in trouble when a Gadwall is a highlight). At least I got to put my Paramo poncho (first prize in this year's SOS conference raffle) to good use. We did find some impressive fungi (especially a big Dyer's Mazegill) and the huge webs of Bridge Spiders (Larinioides sclopetarius) on the dam were suitably terrifying. Thanks to those brave / foolish souls who joined me for the walk and thanks again to the SOS for their donations to assist the conservation work which has been undertaken on this reserve.

Nice to see a Cuckoo today at Park Corner Heath, near East Hoathly.

A Wheatear was on the beach (pic), a Willow Warbler was in the tamarisks and two Little Egret were on the Lagoon this morning, at low tide.