Approaching 150

2018 has been my first full year patching at Pulborough. While I'm not interested in competing with anyone else I did think it'd be fun to try and do a bit of a 'big year' and see how many species I could record here in twelve months, which is why I registered Pulborough as my patch on Patchwork Challenge.

Not long into the year, Dave Buckingham suggested I should have a good chance of getting 150, which I promptly scoffed at. Having only patch watched Surrey sites before, anything much over a hundred seemed good going to me. Come late spring though and Whinchat took me to 140 and I began to realise perhaps it wasn't such an impossible total after all. Things got decidedly stagnant in the summer and there have been some gripping dips along the way for sure, most notably Cattle Egret and countless Ospreys, but yesterday I notched up species 148 in the form of a female/immature Merlin causing havoc on the Mid Brooks - always an exciting bird to encounter. This one even had the good grace to perch for a couple of minutes in a tree (obviously didn't get the memo about Merlins not doing that) where it gave great views before being chased off by Crows.

Merlin

The recent rain has really boosted the water levels and it's good to see the Brooks bursting back to life now, with Pintail and Black-tailed Godwit numbers in particular beginning to get impressive - 110+ and 42+ today, respectively.

Other bits of note this weekend have been the continued presence of Short-eared Owl. One was seen quartering over the North Brooks from home on Saturday afternoon while this morning one drifted in high from the south and over my head near Winpenny - evidently a newly-arrived migrant as by dusk there were three hunting together over the North Brooks along with a couple of Barn Owls. A Woodcock flew up through Hanger Wood as I passed this morning - not a bird I've seen a huge amount of at PB, surprisingly - while a male Marsh Harrier was quartering down at Hail's View.

Short-eared Owl coming in this morning