All change

 As I said in my 2021 Pulborough review, last year was a record breaking and memorable year in so many ways. I'd decided by the autumn though, once I reached my 150 target, that 2022 would be a year for change. Not least, in part, due to becoming a father in October, my priorities changed somewhat. It seemed rather a fruitless exercise to go through the same routine as last year and try to beat my own record Pulborough year list.

Instead, I decided this year would be about exploring, adventures and enjoying birding for its own sake. Indeed, I have made it my goal, within reason to visit as many new places as possible, and try to go somewhere different every day. Discovering new places and species right on my doorstep. Coincidentally, Birdwatch/BirdGuides then announced their #LocalBigYear challenge, which fitted perfectly with what I'd already been planning for the new year.

So, I set about studying maps and decided a rough 10km radius around Pulborough would offer plenty of interesting and diverse habitat to get stuck into. Some of it, like Pulborough Brooks, Waltham Brooks and Amberley Wildbrooks, I know very well or reasonably well, other areas I have been to far less, if at all. I also tweaked the radius slightly to include the Knepp Estate where I'll be spending a lot of time this year, as I start leading safaris there in the spring.

The new 'uber patch'

There are some good stretches of woodland, particularly to the northwest and southwest of Pulborough, and also various intriguing flooded patches along the various rivers that crisscross the recording area. The South Downs offer plenty of opportunities for sky-watching as well as some enticing patches of farmland. 

As of the time of writing I've already notched up 100 species within the recording area. Highlights have included a Little Gull on the flood behind the house on the 4th, a Hen Harrier at Waltham Brooks on the 1st, Cattle Egret and 3 Great White Egrets at Burton Mill & Chingford Ponds on the 10th, the eleven Bewick's Swans at Amberley also on the 10th, Merlin and Corn Buntings galore up Chantry Hill on the 15th and my first ever local Dartford Warblers at Lavington Common on the 17th.

After just under three weeks I already feel as though I have a greater understanding of the mosaic of habitats within this corner of West Sussex, and I'm excited to see what else I discover in the months to come.

Grey Wagtail

Goosanders

Bramblings

Corn Buntings

Little Gull

150! And other news...

As anyone who's been vaguely following my tweets or occasional blog posts will probably know, I confidently announced back at the end of last year, having got to the end of December with my Pulborough year list teetering on 149, that 2021 would be the year I finally reach 150. The first quarter of the year was strong and I was into the 140s by mid-May and feeling confident although, after my 'What doldrums?' post on here in June, things did go rather worryingly quiet for a while. Thankfully, August proved to be typically excellent and I cruised into September sitting pretty on 148. Fast forward to this past weekend and, after a very exciting Saturday evening (more on that shortly), I was all set to write a blog post explaining the events that led to my 149th species of the year, and ponder what might be number 150.

As ever though, the birds had other ideas and on Sunday afternoon I found myself racing back to the reserve to catch up with the big 150, sooner than expected.

It's been four years since the last record of Pectoral Sandpiper at Pulborough, and the species has been on my mind lately, with various inland records around the country. Indeed, as I left the reserve after my early morning whizz round on Sunday I ran into local birder Andrew Rodgers, who was just arriving, and suggested it might be one we see turning up soon. "I'll see if I can find one for us", he said as we parted. As it turns out, it was volunteers Graham Osborne and Neil Buckthorpe who were the lucky ones later on in the day. I'd just got back from Knepp and was finishing lunch ahead of a busy afternoon of various household and allotment chores when the text from Graham came through: "Hi Matt, Pectoral Sandpiper on North Brooks." A little while later it was in my 'scope view, happily feeding away in the afternoon sunshine, in exactly the spot I was hoping to find one earlier. In all honesty, 150 probably would have felt that bit sweeter had I found the bird myself, but I still wasn't going to complain, and graciously thanked Neil and Graham for the find and speedy news.

Pectoral Sandpiper on the North Brooks, photo by Paul Davy

Anyway, back to Saturday evening, because it's really quite an extraordinary turn of events that probably wasn't done justice by a few rather panicked tweets at the time. 

Just after 16:40, Wes Attridge posted on Twitter and the Surrey birding WhatsApp chat that he'd had an Osprey low southwest over Capel. In other words, heading roughly towards Pulborough. I should add at this point that just half an hour or so before this I'd been saying to Kate that if I was going to get Osprey on my Pulborough year list it really needed to happen in the next week or two otherwise the window would likely have closed for the year. I should also add that I'd only had one Pulborough Osprey up until this point, back in April 2019. Indeed, it might be surprising to learn that a search on the BirdGuides app reveals just a dozen or so records for the reserve in the past decade. So, trickier than one might expect for a wetland reserve beside a major river, and very much a case of being in the right place at the right time. 

So, back to this particular Osprey. I decided a good skywatch had to be in order, just for the one in a thousand chance that this bird might actually continue on its flight path and drift overhead. I also gave Gary Trew the heads-up, as he lives a mile or so east of me on the other side of Pulborough. I'd reckoned it would take the bird at the very least 40-45 minutes to reach us, if it didn't deviate from its course, so I was amazed when Gary tweeted at 17:12 that he was watching it flying past his house! I immediately sprang up from the garden chair and sprinted up to the attic window just in time to watch it cruising past on the far side of the Brooks, catching the early evening sunlight as it powered off towards the South Downs. Magic! Amazingly, it's not the first time it's happened either, as a couple of years ago Wes gave a heads-up for those of us up Leith Hill tower that he'd had an Osprey over Dorking town centre heading our way, and we managed to get on that one too. It turns out lightning really does strike twice - especially with sharp-eyed friends like Wes!

Saturday's Osprey, photo by Gary Trew

Me just after seeing the Osprey from the attic, photo by Mrs Matt

My rough guess of the Osprey's flight path, sketched just after it passed Pulborough

So, that's 150 then. Oh, and the other news bit? Well, just as I've completed one big challenge for 2021, it's almost time for the next one to begin...

New addition to the life list - due in November!

Seasoning

I feel like I’ve been saying 'what a weird year' a lot lately, but it’s hard to disagree. The driest, coldest April for decades, dominated by northerlies, clearly held back a lot of migrant species and the exceptionally wet May has undoubtedly taken its toll on both residents and migrants who have managed to breed. Of course, these extreme shifts in weather patterns are sadly no surprise and will only intensify in years to come. One can only imagine the challenges climate change will throw in the way of birds traversing Africa and mainland Europe to reach us each year, but that's a much larger topic for another blog post, perhaps.

From a patch birding perspective, I knew in January if I was going to reach 150 at Pulborough this year then I needed to be hitting 140 by the end of the spring. Having failed to connect with the likes of Whinchat, Redstart and Tree Pipit in the past few weeks, it’s fair to say I didn’t have Brent Goose and Hawfinch on my radar as potential additions to the list come late May. Indeed, the Brent Goose on the 26th was my 140th Pulborough species this year, with this morning’s flyover Hawfinch taking me nicely into the 140s, leaving me with seven months to find another nine. Not quite home and dry yet but feeling quietly confident!

Brent Goose on the North Brooks, 26th May

Photo by Chris and Juliet Moore

The Brent Goose was long overdue after an oddly quiet winter for them at the Brooks, especially considering there had been several records by this time last year. I perhaps should’ve expected to find it on the reserve in the morning as I’d actually thought I’d heard one through the bedroom window the previous evening, but I decided I’d imagined it and thought nothing more of it until my usual early morning scan of the North Brooks.

The Hawfinch was a real bonus, and my first on the reserve since the unforgettable 2017/18 influx. I actually heard it several moments before I saw it. I was walking through the narrow section of Adder Alley and heard what sounded a little like a Reed Bunting call to the north of me, but straight away knew it wasn't quite right for that species, followed by a loud tick slightly reminiscent of a Grey Wagtail. That species is not a particularly common sight on the reserve at this time of year so it was enough to make me look up just in time to see the unmistakable chunky, big-winged, short-tailed shape of a Hawfinch flying straight over my head, quite low, calling several more times as it carried on south over the trees towards the South Brooks. 

With a week of settled weather and easterly winds ahead (at last!), I'm excited to see what surprises this peculiar year throws up next.

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