January-February 2025

A belated roundup of the late winter period, during which pursuit of Water Pipit became a bit of a preoccupation. Combe Valley CP is a known wintering site for the species but they are typically elusive and I struggle to get a handle on numbers. Inspired by a recent British Birds article, I wondered if I might be able to locate a roost site there. Some early starts and a few promising looking bulrush clumps, but alas no luck. A count of three on the 12 January, during a cold spell, was the best of the winter for me. Based on experiences at this site, they become much easier to detect and observe during a freeze.

Water Pipit in flight, showing, in contrast to Rock Pipit: brownish mantle and crown, grey nape, and well marked pale supercilium and wing bars.

More distinguishing features versus Rock Pipit shown here, including paler and less streaked belly and flanks, and white (rather than grey) outer tail feathers.

An image that’s much more representative of the secretive character of Water Pipit!

These cold spells made for some of the most interesting birding in Jan and Feb, where at Combe Valley water birds become far easier to detect and count as they concentrated at the thawing edges of the frozen floods. There on the 12th Jan I made my highest count of Water Rail since I started visiting Combe Valley: 13. Most were detected solely by their squeals but I was delighted to get good views of a few out in the open.

Water Rail at Combe Valley CP, a bird I hear regularly but see very rarely.

On the 23rd Jan there was big influx of gulls into Combe Valley CP shortly after sunrise, presumably birds moving off the sea in response to the frontal system moving in from the southwest that morning. Among them I noted three Caspian Gull, two Yellow-legged Gull and, the highlight, a slam-dunk argentatus European Herring Gull adult. As expected for the Scandinavian subspecies, this was obviously larger and darker mantled than the argenteus birds that breed here and had a really nice outer primary pattern with the mirror on primary nine joined with the tip and white mirror on primary eight.

European Herring Gull of the *argentatus* subspecies (far right) in flight with adult and 1CY *argenteus* Herring and an adult Great Black-backed Gull.

While that was probably my best day of gulling this winter, it has generally been very good for Caspian Gull locally, with another three birds seen in the Hastings area between Jan and Feb. Particularly memorable were point blank views of an adult on the exposed rocks at Rock-a-Nore. Shortly after I got these photos it finished preening and flew off towards the cliffs, used the updraft to gain height and flew west.

Adult Caspian Gull at Rock-a-Nore, quite a dark-mantled individual looking a bit more like argenatatus in shade, but longer-winged with a dark iris, slender parallel-sided bill and long, washed-out pink legs.

The same adult Caspian Gull in flight, showing the outer primary pattern with long ‘tongues’ of grey cutting into the black, white tips to the tongues on primaries seven and six, long white tip to primary 10 and more unusually, a broken black band on primary 5.

I also enjoyed watching a classic 1st-cycle on the 15th Feb at the boating lake, where it was present alongside the usual gathered Herring Gull. The whole group did one of their periodic total flushes and it disappeared among the chaos. I’ve never seen the same individual twice here and the origin (and destination) of these blink-and-you-miss it Casps are something of a mystery.

1st-cycle Caspian Gull (centre) alongside European Herring Gull – in comparison to 1st-cycle Herring (left) it has pale grey-washed scapulars with weak brown patterning, a white head with a streaks around the neck, largely brown greater coverts with pale tips, many moulted median lesser and greater coverts, a long parallel-sided bill and longer legs.

The same bird in flight showing the thick black tail-band contrasting with a relatively white upper-tail.

And finally the underwing, which is relatively dark for Caspian but still showing long tracts of white in comparison to the darker underwing of 1st-cycle Herring.

After the autumn influx, Hawfinch continued to feature in large numbers in the county and small numbers locally. I saw one again in the treeline at Filsham Reedbed SWT, during a dawn pipit hunt on the 23rd Jan. Surely the same bird seen in December, perhaps roosting here and feeding in nearby gardens? I also checked Hastings Cemetery on the 27th Feb and found two very elusive birds there feeding on yews in the western section.

Combe Valley CP is a very reliable spot for wintering Chiffchaff – this individual of the nominate subspecies was feeding in phragmites reed.

On the 22nd Christian C, David C and I came across a Siberian Chiffchaff feeding in the riverside scrub at Combe Valley CP. It neither called nor paused long enough to get decent photos, but it looked like a perfect Siberian with pale sandy-brown upperparts, dirty white underparts which lacked any greenish tones and a buffish wash to the cheek and supercilium. There have been lots of Common Chiffchaff wintering around Filsham, my highest count being seven on the 12th.

Five of six Greater White-fronted Geese at Nook Meadows, Rye Harbour NR, alongside Eurasian Wigeon.

On the 29th I spent the morning covering the Winchelsea Beach end of Rye Harbour, where at Nook Meadows a group of 6 Eurasian Greater White-fronted Geese were grazing on the marsh. Despite reports at Pett Level, these were my first of the winter in what seems to have been a leaner year for wild grey geese locally. On the way back I stopped at Pett Level where the drake Goosander that’s been hanging around was present, as well as the flock of feral Barnacle Geese many wearing coded neck collars. Based on an earlier reading of these collars by Phil Jones, they originate from a feral population breeding in Scorton, North Yorkshire.

Flock of Barnacle Geese at Pett Level, eight of which were wearing white-neck collars that link them to a N Yorkshire feral population.

At Pett Level on the 12th Feb I had my best ever views of Red-throated Diver, which flooded into Rye Bay as the tide came in. One group was really close to the shingle and included a very dark individual which looked like it was moulting into summer plumage already. Dark-bellied Brent Geese continued moving east in small numbers through Jan and Feb. In the last week of Feb, Kittiwake, Common Gull, Mediterranean Gull and Black-headed Gull started heading east too, signalling the start of the spring seawatching season.

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