November and December can mean only one thing: gulls, and particularly the passage of large gulls which seems to occur in Sussex at this time of year. My impression is that that years passage was more protracted, with numbers never quite reaching the heights of the great westward movements of late December last year.

There were some great days of gull-watching though and particularly momentus was the morning of 8th Nov, when I arrived at West Hill to a trickle of gulls, mostly Great Black-backed Gull, moving east. After an hours or so of not much, suddenly three Caspian Gull flew east in quick succession, followed by a 1st-cycle Black-legged Kittiwake which landed on the boating lake! I messaged this out to David C who was on his way to Pett Level and he found another six different Casps (all 1st-cycle) over that way — amazing.

Ultimately I recorded nine Caspian Gull over the month, every age group represented but majority 1st-cycle (as expected). Yellow-legged Gull were actually scarcer than Casps this year, with (excluding the resident 2nd-cycle) just six individuals, half of which were adults. Most seemed to be passing through and one of the adults came in off the sea. Age breakdown for both species in table below.

Species	Total	1st-cycle	2nd-cycle	3rd-cycle	4th-cycle+
Caspian Gull	9	5	2	1	1
Yellow-legged Gull	6	1	1	1	3

Visible migration trickled on into November along the cliffs and the expected Woodpigeon, Stock Dove and finch flocks were a regular sight until they started to wind down towards the end of the month. A particular highlight was a Short-eared Owl over West Hill on the 5th Nov. Also notable were three Hawfinch east at Hastings CP on the 10th Nov and several sightings from various watchpoints of small numbers of Northern Lapwing moving east, including two in off the sea on the 1st Nov and a flock of nine on the 3rd Nov over West Hill.

It was a joy to watch four Black Redstart feeding on the cliffs at Hastings CP on the 12th Nov, which could easily have been local or migrant birds. A surprise find was a late Common Whitethroat at West Hill from 3rd till at least the 5th Nov. It struck me as very drab in colouration and got me thinking about the eastern subspecies, though they have no certain field identification criteria at this point.

I didn’t spend a lot of time over Rye way but a visit to the Winchelsea Beach end of RHNR on the 28th was incredible, with 68 species recorded, including a Spotted Redshank on the pools, a Merlin zipping around and a good count of 72 Sanderling (which the Merlin flushed from the foreshore). A Black-necked Grebe was on one of the roadside pools at Pett Level on the 3rd Dec and hung around until at least the 25th Dec.

WeBSs counts at Combe Valley CP are a winter highlight and the lists were quite amazing — a reminder just what an extraordinary site this is. Bear in mind too that the bulk of these counts are from portions of the site with effectively zero active conservation management. Here’s a sample from the 14th December list:

• 65 Northern Shoveler
• 130 Gadwall
• 200 Eurasian Wigeon
• 100 Northern Pintail
• 450 Eurasian Teal
• 25 Pochard
• 20 Tufted Duck
• 11 Water Rail
• 15 Snipe

On top of the massive numbers waterbirds there’s always something else to see: it’s a stronghold for wintering Water Pipit; there’s been at least two Bearded Reedling hanging around since the autumn; and on the 14th I was surprised to see a Hawfinch in the treeline near Filsham Reedbed SWT.

Some time spent seawatching in late November and December was quite productive. The highlight was an early start watch at West Hill on the first day of Storm Bret 23rd Nov, where a Great Northern Diver flew west and a pale morph Arctic Skua barrelled through east with the wind — both tricky species to catch up with here.

I also experimented with watching from St Leonards Marina, which has superior rain/wind shelter compared to West Hill, plus you get a bit closer to the birds. On the 8th Dec a Velvet Scoter flew in from the west and joined a group of Common Scoter offshore. By the following morning it had been joined by a second bird. Rounding out the years seawatching was perhaps its most impressive spectacle: at least 600 Red-throated Diver, most moving west, offshore from Bulverhythe Beach on the 29th Dec.