17th July 2019 - Pett Level and Pannel Valley NR

I travelled over to Pett Level with Max straight from work. After we had got through some pretty dreadful traffic we eventually arrived at 17:20. First port of call was to look for the Ferruginous Duck on Pett Pools. I expected this to be pretty easy but it was far from that, we bumped into a couple who told us it was their fourth visit and they still hadn't seen it! We stood on the sea-wall for 30 minutes or so hoping we would get lucky but it didn't happen, instead we opted to walk up the Military Canal and go to Pannel Valley to look for the Pectoral Sandpiper and Curlew Sandpiper. 

We had been at Pannel Valley for around 45 minutes and there was still no sign of either, it looked like it could be turning into a bad trip. However, a helicopter flew over the wader scrape and put everything up, I got lucky in that I managed to pick up both of our target waders in flight they dropped in behind the island in front of us and a short wait led them to walking along the front edge of the island right in front of us giving nice views. The scrape also held eight Black-tailed Godwits, six Greenshanks, four Little Ringed Plovers, two Ruff and a Snipe. Whilst in the reeds just in front of us there was two juvenile Bearded Tits and later a Marsh Harrier flew over to the west. Our walk back to the car produced another two Marsh Harriers and a Buzzard. 

Pectoral Sandpiper, Pannel Valley NR, East Sussex

Curlew Sandpiper, Pannel Valley NR, East Sussex

We gave it another go with the Ferruginous Duck but again failed to find it. Although whilst looking we saw two more Bearded Tits including a smart male, a Common Sandpiper, a juvenile Mediterranean Gull and two Whimbrel.