New Year's Day year listing

For many birder's, the 1st of January means only one thing - year listing! However, my approach to New Year's Day has usually been fairly low key with perhaps a local birding walk to blow off the cobwebs from the festivities the night before and then (assuming Brighton have a home game) football in the afternoon.

Southwick Canal is one of those places that nine times out of ten turns up nothing but has had the occasional good bird (Eider, Great Northern Diver, Glaucous & Iceland Gulls, Little Auk, Slavonian Grebe etc). Since 23rd November, it has played host to a showy female Long-tailed Duck nearly always to be found in the same spot just west of the Barrett Steel warehouse. There have been plenty of occasions when long-staying birds present on New Year's Eve have disappeared overnight (the Aldburgh Ivory Gull in 1999 being one) but I had high hopes that the Long-tailed Duck would still be there today and thus a useful addition to my local (5 miles from home) year list.

My first bird of 2022 was Herring Gull just as it has been for the last few years. Our plan for the morning was to walk from home to Southwick Canal and then continue over the lock gates to Southwick Beach but, just as we were about to set off, I had a text from Chris Corrigan to say that there was no sign of the Long-tailed Duck. Knowing that it could occasionally hide in the bay by the fuel storage tanks, we decided to go and look anyway but it was nowhere to be seen and had clearly departed. May be the noise from the fireworks a few hours before had disturbed it or the very mild conditions had encouraged it to move on?

A Long-tailed Duck less Southwick Canal

By the time we were back home, we'd notched up a very modest 27 species, the 'highlights' being a Peregrine perched on the power station chimney, a singing Mistle Thrush and a flyover Song Thrush at Southwick Green (both fairly scarce locally) and a Chiffchaff and two now red-listed Greenfinches in St Michael's churchyard.

Peregrine on the power station chimney

My plan for the afternoon was to meet up with Gareth and sample the delights of non-league football (Worthing v Horsham) but by the time I'd got to Worthing the weather had deteriorated with heavy rain forecast for later. Rather than risk a soaking at the football, we opted instead to go and check the gulls at a very busy Goring Gap but, with parking and viewing spaces limited, we could only find three Mediterranean Gulls (all adults) with a large flock of Common Gulls in the short time we were there. The rest of the afternoon was spent looking at distant white blobs in the Arun Valley, first the eight Bewick's Swans (5 adults/3 juvs) on the water meadows below the cricket pitch at Burpham and then five Cattle Egrets from Mill Road, Arundel with a visit in between to the WWT where Dalmatian Pelicans, Harlequin Ducks, Scaly-sided Mergansers and Spectacled Eiders all vied for our attention!

  Bewick's Swans at Burpham

4 (of 5) Cattle Egrets at Arundel

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