24th November 2019 - Dell Quay, Pennington Marshes and The Burgh

First port of call was Dell Quay, it was a fine crisp morning but it was pretty misty. We managed to find the Long-tailed Duck but sadly it was miles off and showed poorly in the mist. It seemed to be associating with a female Goldeneye and redhead Red-breasted Merganser. Also of note in the channel were two Little Grebe, a Great Crested Grebe, a Grey Heron, a Grey Plover, four Curlew, two Greenshank, c50 Brent Goose and 2 Mute Swan.

We moved onto Pennington to look for the Semipalmated Sandpiper which the previous day had been showing well in its favoured area of Oxey Lagoon. Upon arrival 20 Golden Plover and a Ruff flew over the car park. We headed to Oxey Lagoon where we found our second Long-tailed Duck of the day, this bird was offering great views and was brilliant to watch. We walked a small distance to where the Semipalmated Sandpiper had been favouring but there was no sign. Birds of note here included singles of Spotted Redshank, Dunlin and Greenshank. Unsure on what to do we went for a large walk to try and locate the Semipalmated Sandpiper although despite our best efforts and walking all the way round to Normandy Marsh we could not find it.

Long-tailed Duck, Oxey Lagoon ,Hampshire

We headed back to West Sussex and on our way home we stopped at The Burgh. We scanned from Burpham Triangle and saw two Common Buzzard, a Red Kite and a Kestrel. Whilst the field opposite the 'metal gate' held eight Grey Partridge.

Frustratingly it was one of those days where nothing seemed to go as planned!