Horse-eye Level - Sussex Grip Back!

Richard's Pipit - Horse-eye Level

Finally a chance to grip back a county tick on some of the oldies! With the last record at Climping in 2008 (A bird I dipped) I thought the chance had gone after arriving on the 6th November only for Geoff Gowlett to tell me that he had lost the bird as it flew further out onto the marsh. Fast forward twenty-three days and Geoff re-found the bird! Insane!

I popped down the next day after a text from Matt saying it was still present and sure enough after a short wait it flew, calling and hovered about 6ft off the floor before dropping into the grass and vanishing. Garry B, Max and JK weren't sure it was the bird but I had seen them hovering a few times on Scillies and was 99.9% sure it was the bird. Soon enough it took off again calling as it went and this time landed closer to the road allowing really good scope views.

Eventually it flew over our heads calling and did a loop behind us finally dropping down once again in front of us on the west side of the road. A really good county tick and I was chuffed to bits to get it. An added bonus was a Dartford Warbler 100yds further up the road which showed fantastically on the roadside brambles. Many thanks to GG, CB and MRE for the texts about the bird, much appreciated.