A pair of Ruff

29 Thursday Oct 2026

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On my last day in East Sussex I returned once again to the Seven Sisters Country Park, the place that had drawn me back to this stunning part of England’s southern coastline, and walked out to the sea and back along both sides of the river, hoping, though not really expecting, to find one last birding surprise before I had to return home. There were Curlew and a couple of Bar-tailed godwits, Brent geese and Wigeon, a few Greylags amongst the big flocks of Canada geese – all lovely to see, of course, just not that something special I was wishing for. And then, when I was almost back at the carpark of the Cuckmere Inn, a little thought popped into my mind – maybe I should take one more quick look along the path out to the western side of the river.

And there they were, quite close to the path, browsing amongst the vegetation of the saltmarsh. Now, I have to admit that, as I don’t see them very often and have never seen a male and female in winter plumage together before, I didn’t initially recognise these waders, and I actually thought they were two different species. Given the substantial difference in their size and colouring, I think you can probably see why.

These are Ruff (Calidris pugnax). As you would expect, the male is the larger bird, coloured in shades of black, white and grey, and the female – actually known as a Reeve – is the smaller, buff and brown coloured bird. Both were beautiful, and I was overjoyed to find and then to spend quite a bit of time watching them. Seeing these two stunning birds was the best possible finale to what had been a wonderful week in East Sussex.

Late Lepidoptera in East Sussex

28 Wednesday Oct 2026

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Though I thought I would probably see a few Clouded yellows and perhaps a late-migrating Red admiral, I didn’t really expect to see many butterflies during my week in East Sussex, and most of the time the weather was too wild and windy for small invertebrates to be on the wing.

Above, one of several Clouded yellows, and, below, a slightly tatty Red admiral – will it attempt the migration flight or simply fade away in southern Britain?

However, as is often the case, when the sun is shining even the smallest sheltered spot can hold some super surprises. This was one of three Common blues I saw flitting about amongst the low-growing wildflowers between areas of scrub on Beachy Head, most unexpected in such an exposed location.

As well as a few Painted ladies, Speckled woods, and Small whites, I was also delighted to spot a couple of Small copper butterflies, a species I certainly didn’t expect to see again this year.

Probably the biggest surprise, though, was this stunning Humming-bird hawk-moth, flitting about the lovely seaside flower gardens along Eastbourne Promenade, at the western end of the beach. A late autumn delight!

Flighty Golden plovers

27 Tuesday Oct 2026

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As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, there were two birding highlights during my day at Rye Harbour Nature Reserve. One was the surprise find of a Dartford warbler, my second for this trip. The other was the enjoyment I got from spending quite a lot of time watching the huge flock of Golden plovers (Pluvialis apricaria).

These birds seemed particularly unsettled, frequently rising up from the mud to fly around the waterways before settling back down again. I couldn’t spot anything in particular that might be disturbing them; maybe they just like to fly.

I’ve never seen the Golden plover in my part of south Wales. In the summer, they are upland birds, breeding mostly in Scotland, in the highlands and on the islands of the Outer Hebrides and Shetland. In the winter, they move to southern Britain, spending time on farmland and in coastal estuaries, and can be seen further west along the Welsh coastline from where I live.

Having followed local social media reports before my visit, I knew I would see these birds at Rye Harbour NR and had hoped for closer views but they were always distant. Though you probably can’t tell from my photos, many of the Golden plovers were still in the speckled black-and-gold summer plumage that gives them their name. As the winter progresses, they will moult to look more black and white, with a delicate sprinkling of light brown replacing the summer gold on their backs. I admit to a little disappointment at not getting a better look at these beautiful birds but they were still a delight to watch.

Rye Harbour Nature Reserve

26 Monday Oct 2026

Posted by in autumn, birds, plants, seaside, wildflowers

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On Wednesday 14 October I ventured away from the Eastbourne area, taking the train to Rye to visit the magnificent Rye Harbour Nature Reserve. And it was just as good as I remembered, though a dry summer of heatwaves has led to severe drought across much of southern England and this was very apparent in the low water levels at the reserve, meaning the birds were even more distant than usual. Also, I hadn’t realised that the northern half of the reserve was closed due to a deadly combination of bird flu, avian botulism, and periods of blue-green algae in the waterways. Not surprisingly, this rather restricted where I could walk, but it’s a huge reserve so I still managed to clock up several miles and saw some very nice fauna and flora during my visit.

As the Glassworts (Salicornia species) lose their chlorophyll they change to vivid shades of red and purple, rust and terracotta making the autumn colours of the saltmarsh just gorgeous.

There were two birding highlights for me during this visit; the first will be revealed in tomorrow’s blog, the second was the wonderful surprise of finding another Dartford warbler (you’ll recall I also found one at Belle Tout). This little one was rather more of the skulking type, and only allowed me to get a couple of distant photos.

Redshanks were abundant. This one was grabbing 40 winks in a quiet corner.

Wigeon were also plentiful. Snoozing, cruising, and munching on vegetation – such is the life of this handsome duck.

A sprinkling of wildflowers were still in bloom on the shingle; this lovely Viper’s bugloss (Echium vulgare) was one.

I was also delighted to see this new-to-me Twiggy Mullein (Verbascum virgatum), a very pretty wildflower with quite tall stems covered in lovely yellow flowers, another locally common shingle-growing plant.

Clustered bellflower

25 Sunday Oct 2026

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I wasn’t expecting to discover any new flora during my East Sussex trip, especially in mid October, so finding two new plant species was an unexpected highlight. This is the first, Clustered bellflower (Campanula glomerata).

I was alerted to the possibility of seeing these flowers through a social media post a fortnight before my trip by a birder from the local area, though I wasn’t sure if they would still be in bloom, nor how easy they would be to find. I was also a little concerned by what I read about the flower in my Flora Britannica:

Its bunches of trumpet-shaped violet-blue flowers on shortish stems persist until quite late in the summer – which makes its flowering period overlap with that of the autumn gentian. It should perhaps be called ‘fool’s gentian’ from the number of occasions on which the two species are confused.

Having never seen Clustered bellflower or Autumn gentian before, I could turn out to be the fool!

Fortunately for me, the plant was easily found, growing in the short turf in several of the more sheltered places along the chalk cliff tops, though these specimens appear more stunted than is usual, perhaps because of the dry summer. And, as you can see from my photos, it was still in bloom. And, even better, its downy leaves meant it was reasonably easy to distinguish from Autumn gentian.

Dartford warblers

24 Saturday Oct 2026

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Though I see a lot of very fine birds during the hours I spend walking in Nature, I don’t often find them myself – I have usually heard about them through my WhatsApp group or my contacts on social media – so there is something especially rewarding and satisfying about finding a special bird myself.

And that’s what happened twice during my recent week in East Sussex, the same bird species both times. The birds were Dartford warblers (Curruca undata), and I found the first in scrub below the former lighthouse at Belle Tout.

These birds are frequently found in the company of Stonechats and often seen perching on the tops of Gorse bushes. Both Stonechats and Gorse were abundant in the area of scrub where I was walking, and I had just been thinking that, given how many Stonechats there were and how much Gorse, there really should be a Dartford warbler, when … boom! I heard its distinctive call from the bushes down the slope from where I was standing, and then up it popped.

These warblers are notorious for skulking in bushes, frustrating bird watchers by their teasing behaviour, giving tantalisingly brief views before disappearing for long periods into the undergrowth (and that’s exactly what happened when I spotted my second Dartford warbler of the trip at Rye Harbour Nature Reserve a couple of days later; blog about Rye to follow).

So, I was exceedingly lucky that this first Dartford warbler showed well for me. I even saw it interacting with other birds, first with the Stonechats and then, as you can see from my sequence of three photos here, with a male Blackcap that was probably about to head off on its migration journey.

Dartford warblers themselves don’t migrate but they do often disperse from their breeding locations during the autumn, and this is probably what was happening with the two I saw, as they are not usually seen in the locations where I found them. As you can imagine, I was over the moon with my special finds.

Corn buntings

23 Friday Oct 2026

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From the social media posts of local East Sussex birders and research about recent sightings, I knew there was a chance I might see Corn buntings near Birling Gap. I was given the following advice: ‘If you park at Birling Gap and head east towards Beachy Head they are often to be seen as you look inland to your left from the car park.’ I was on foot, of course, but the advice was spot on. There was a field full of scrub and bramble right next to the overflow carpark, and that’s where I heard, then thought I saw my first Corn buntings in many years.

I saw ‘thought I saw’, as there were also plenty of Linnets, Meadow pipits and Skylarks in the area, all streaky brown birds that can easily be confused with each other, especially when viewed from a distance. Fortunately, the Corn bunting (Emberiza calandra) has a very distinctive call, which many have described as sounding like jangling keys and that helped me home in on these buntings. (I did take a video of one calling but the sound from the bird was obscured by the noise of passing cars, so here’s a link to the RSPB website, where you can have a listen.)

Sadly, the Corn bunting is now a red-listed bird, having suffered a population decline in Britain over the final quarter of the 20th century of as much as 90 per cent. This dramatic decline is due to changes in agricultural practice; growing crops twice each year, rather than leaving fields fallow over the winter, has meant there is no longer any stubble-field seed available to see the birds through the colder months, and the increasing use of chemicals in agriculture has led to huge declines in the insects these buntings would usually feed to their chicks. Seeing these Corn buntings at Birling Gap was, for me, both a joyful and a heart-wrenching experience.

Birling Gap and Beachy Head

22 Thursday Oct 2026

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Today’s blog is a combination of landscape, and a fraction of what I saw as I walked through that landscape.

We start at Birling Gap, an area that frequently features on the news due to the dramatic cliff falls that have occurred here. (In January this year, nine people and a dog had to be rescued from the beach after the cliff behind the steps to the beach collapsed – details and photos on the BBC website.) My photo shows the view west from Birling Gap, along the Seven Sisters cliffs. Where the land dips down at the end of the Seven Sisters is where the Cuckmere River runs out to the sea. In the distance you might just make out the cottages seen in the final photo from my blog about the Seven Sisters Country Park a couple of days ago, and the chalk cliffs beyond that form the coastline from the Seven Sisters CP to the town of Seaford. The King Charles III England Coastal Path runs along the cliff tops.

All this coast, from Seaford to Eastbourne, is a migration hot spot for birds heading south out over the sea in the autumn, and for species arriving from the south in the spring. My photo shows one of the many Chiffchaffs that were feeding up in the bushes, prior to their migration journey.

The next landmark as we walk from Birling Gap towards Eastbourne is Belle Tout, a former lighthouse, now unique bed and breakfast accommodation (far too expensive for my budget, sadly). You might think that the lighthouse would be unsafe, considering how close it is to the erosion-prone cliff edge. Well, it was once even closer to that edge and, incredibly, was moved back 55 feet (17 metres). (There’s an excellent short video from the Institution of Civil Engineers on YouTube if you’re interested in learning and seeing more of this amazing engineering feat.) My memory of this area will now forever be linked to a special bird I found in the scrub you can see to the right of the lighthouse – blog to follow.

Between Belle Tout and Beachy Head is an extensive area of patchy scrub that is yet  another birding hot spot. As several had recently passed through this area, I was hoping to spot a Ring ouzel but had no luck during my two visits. The only bird of note was this late Wheatear.

Next, we climb up the hill to Beachy Head, at 531 feet (162 metres) the highest point along these cliffs, and off shore, at the base of the cliffs, is the Beachy Head light, which replaced Belle Tout as the fully functioning lighthouse to warn shipping of the rocks and dangerous waters off this coast.

On one of my visits to this area, I walked all the way back to my hotel in Eastbourne, a total for the day of around 8 and a half miles. I was sitting on a bench at the top of Beachy Head having my lunch when a large flock of birds flew over, heading east to west along the coast. I wasn’t sure which species they were but, fortunately, one of my local birding acquaintances, who does a lot of vismig (visual migration – watching, identifying, counting the birds as they move through), was able to identify these as Stock doves. The sight was a wonderful reminder of how special this area is for migrating birdlife.

Devil’s coach-horse beetle

21 Wednesday Oct 2026

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Though my visits to the Seven Sisters Country Park were aimed at finding and watching birds, on one occasion, when I was checking where I was about to place one foot, I spotted this little critter.

Appropriately enough, it’s a species of Rove beetle, roving around its patch. And I’m sure many of you will recognise it, from its all black colouring, the squarish shape of its body parts, the formidable-looking pincers, and the way it raised its rear end in a threatening gesture that makes it resemble a scorpion when it realised my foot was near by. That scorpion-like gesture is likely the reason for its association with the devil; the Buglife website has some information about the myths that surround this creature.

This is, of course, a Devil’s coach-horse beetle (Ocypus olens), a ferocious predator of other invertebrates and anything dead it might find in its travels. It may have been out hunting but it might also have been looking for a mate, as these beetles reproduce in the autumn. I took a few photos and stepped back, and the beetle headed off into the undergrowth.

Birds at Seven Sisters Country Park

20 Tuesday Oct 2026

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Many of the wonderful birds I was lucky enough to see during my two days at Seven Sister Country Park in East Sussex were quite distant, certainly too far away for anything more than record photographs. These are a few that I managed to get a little closer to, and there will be one more blog about a stunning pair of birds I saw on the last day of my trip that deserve a post of their own.

I only saw two Bar-tailed godwits, and the other was probing its way along a distant mud bank. Luckily, this one was nearer, and I was able to sneak up behind the cover of scrub and bramble bushes.

I heard the Curlews before I saw them, at least a dozen of them during my first visit but none at all on the second day.

Either I saw three Kestrels this day, or one Kestrel three times. I suspect it was the latter, and I was delighted to get wonderfully close views.

The park was teeming with both Meadow pipits and Skylarks, the sounds of their calls a constant accompaniment as I walked the paths.

The Skylarks were even song-flighting, something they usually do in the springtime to establish a territory and attract a mate. They were easily spooked though, so I only managed to grab one quick shot of this bird on the ground in the open.

The fields on the edge of Cuckmere Valley were alive with Rooks, poking about in the grass for whatever small invertebrates they could find.

Stonechats were also abundant. Whether these birds were resident or on passage, I’m not sure, but, as they’re one of my favourite birds, I was very glad to see them.