Dust and lowering skies

Given that this is supposed to be the relatively quiet period in the birding year, the past fortnight or so has actually been one of the most enjoyable periods of 2023 so far for me, from a local birding perspective. The clear highlight, of course, was finding a Marsh Warbler just a few hundred metres from home, which was still present at the time of writing (update: it has since departed, it seems).

Otherwise it's been a fairly steady stream of waders, Cuckoos and various less common breeding species, plus some of the first high summer butterflies and odonata of the year.

Weather-wise, it's been a relief to get some much-needed rain in the past week or so, including some particularly impressive thunderstorms. I have been once again reminded how spectacular lightning is when it flashes around the South Downs, as storm fronts slowly approach Sussex from the English Channel.

12th June

A fairly brief whizz round Pulborough Brooks this morning produced a pleasing selection of species including 3 Little Ringed Plover, Cuckoo, Dunlin, 10 Avocet, my first Redshank chick of the year, a single White Stork on the North Brooks and at least three Nightingales still singing. 

13th June

I was out of the house before 05:30 this morning (not something that has happened often lately) with my plan being to head up the Arun to Waltham Brooks then back via the sewage works. In the end I never even made it as far as the river as around 500m from home my attention was drawn to an odd Acro song coming from an area of mixed rank vegetation right next to the railway line at Thorndale Bridge. I've often heard Cetti's Warbler in this spot but not Reed Warbler as far as I can remember, so it instantly stood out as rather out of context. This, combined with the fact I was hearing elements of mimicry (including Goldfinch, Swallow, Blackbird, Blue Tit and even Bee-eater) immediately rang alarm bells and my thoughts quickly turned to Marsh Warbler. I positioned myself near the railway bridge and, over the course of the next hour, hoped that the bird would show itself well enough to get some record shorts and audio recordings, which it dutifully did, and I left site at 07:00 very happy I had self-found my first Sussex Marsh Warbler and, indeed my first anywhere in the UK for around ten years!

Marsh Warbler

14th June

A decent session at Burton Mill Pond this morning produced 43 species in 100 minutes. Highlights included a female Mandarin with young on the outflow near the mill house, the Great Crested Grebe pair feeding three young on the main pond and a Little Owl hunting along the fenceline at Burton Park Farm. Two Siskins over Newpiece Moor were also noteworthy, given what a poor first half of the year it's been for the species. Apparently, they were once known as 'barley birds' owing to their tendency to reappear around the onset of high summer (i.e. the time that barley is ripening for harvest), presumably due to dispersing young birds and post-breeding adults.

15th June

Not much birding today aside from an hour or so at Thorndale Bridge in the evening, where I bumped into Michael and Dan Booker, hoping to connect with the Marsh Warbler. Sadly, we didn't have any luck this time, despite a Reed Warbler doing its best to convince us otherwise, by throwing in occasional bursts of Goldfinch mimicry into its song - strange, considering I hadn't heard Reed Warbler here before, but a quick Google search on my phone brought up a BB paper which suggested Reed Warblers which spend any length of time in the vicinity of Marsh Warblers have been known to incorporate mimicry into their songs. A Barn Owl kept us entertained, hunting around Wharf Field, while there were again plenty of Swallows flying about overhead and a Nightingale called briefly by the railway line as I was heading for home. 

16th June

An early two hour session at Pulborough this morning proved to be quite lively. Highlights included all three egrets (9 Little Egret and one each of Great Egret and Cattle Egret), two each of Ringed Plover and Little Ringed Plover together on the North Brooks (which was a bit confusing at first as it's very unusual to see these two species together here at this time of year), singles of Dunlin, Black-tailed Godwit and White-tailed Eagle and three White Storks (GB0S, GB6S and GB3U from Knepp). There was still plenty of birdsong around including Yellowhammer and Stonechat near Winpenny and a few bursts of Nightingale around the main trail. There were plenty of young birds about too, especially Whitethroat, with at least three family groups seen. 

White Storks

In the afternoon, I headed down to Worthing with B for a walk around Brooklands Park where the highlights were a newly fledged Reed Warbler, a few Swifts and House Martins, two Cetti's Warblers and two Great Black-backed Gulls. On the way home we dropped in at Knepp to watch a bit of the White Stork ringing.

Reed Warbler

White Stork ringing

17th June

Not much birding today other than a short local walk in the morning which was uneventful. While I was at Knepp in the afternoon and evening, news emerged that the Marsh Warbler had been rediscovered along the riverbank at Waltham Brooks so I swung by on my way home in the hope it might still be singing well after sunset. Sadly no luck, just the odd burst of song from Sedge and Reed Warblers. It was quite impressive and more than a little unnerving to be out on the riverbank as lightning flickered distantly all around, but I was glad to get home before the big storm hit in the small hours!

18th June

WeBS day today so I headed over to the private reservoir near Petworth, which produced the usual fare on the water - Coots, Tufted Ducks, Mallards and singles of Mute Swan and Great Crested Grebe - plus two Little Ringed Plovers on the shore. The best in this area though was discovering an active Barn Owl nest in a farm building, with an adult seen leaving a box which I was able to see contained three small chicks.

The owl theme continued later in the day, as a dusk safari at Knepp produced heard-only Barn Owl and at least two squeaking juvenile Tawny Owls near the campsite. Anecdotally, it seems to have been an excellent year for breeding Tawny Owls, as I've been seeing and hearing them all over the place, especially at Knepp, where at least three pairs have bred in the Southern Block. Also of note this evening was a Peregrine over the Southern Block, not a raptor I see here all that often. 

19th June

Not a great amount of birding today due to other life stuff.

20th June

The first butterfly safari of the season at Knepp this morning produced my first White-letter Hairstreaks of the year, but otherwise not a massive amount of lepidopteran interest, as it was decidedly cool and grey, with even a bit of light rain in the air at times.

21st June

An hour early afternoon checking out the local fields near home for the first time in a while didn't produce much in the way of birds, but it was great to discover a colony of White-letter Hairstreaks in some hedgerow Elms just a couple of hundred metres from the house - in an area I had actually earmarked for the species a few weeks back. It's always nice when that happens! Typically they were either whizzing about at high speed above the trees or hidden up in the foliage, so no useable photos really...

An evening session at Thorndale Bridge and the very south-western corner of Waltham Brooks produced a great selection of species, most notably the Marsh Warbler singing in reeds/willow on the south side of the river. This is the first time I've managed to catch up with this elusive bird since finding it last week. It does seem to be splitting its time between the original location and this spot along the river. It was really belting out its song this evening, until just before 22:00 when it went quiet. Mimicry included Goldfinch, Swallow, Wren, Bee-eater, Blue Tit and Nightingale. 

22nd June

Proving the old adage that it's better to get in the field for a few minutes than not at all, this morning I dropped in at Waltham Brooks for all of 15 minutes on my way to Knepp, but it turned into a surprisingly great little session. The Cuckoo was still singing away along the river, my first 1k Little Grebe for a while was on the main lake but, best of all, a Common Sandpiper was perched up on the post in the middle of the lake before taking flight and disappearing out of view towards the western end. A 1k year tick for me, taking the local total to 116 (146 for the wider 10k). Also my first locally for four weeks - too early to call it the first returning bird of autumn?

Song Thrush

After a great butterfly safari at Knepp which yielded my first Purple Emperors of the year, an evening session in the Beaver enclosure produced some equally breathtaking encounters with the resident pair, including a spectacular tail slap just as we were about to leave! It really is astonishing what a great job they have done of engineering the wetland habitat in this part of the estate in the past 18 months or so. Avian highlights here included multiple singing Chiffchaffs, a couple of croaking and whistling Nightingales and what sounded like at least two fledgling Bullfinches calling in the scrub.

Purple Emperor

 

The Beaver enclosure at Knepp

23rd June

The planned early start didn't happen this morning but, after dropping B at nursery, I headed over to Amberley for an hour walk from the castle entrance up to the river bank and back. A pleasing selection of 40 species were recorded including Cuckoo, Hobby (putting the wind up around 40 Swifts gathered over the castle) and a Mute Swan pair with seven cygnets.

Mute Swans

An evening session up the river from home to Waltham Brooks sadly didn't produce the Marsh Warbler, but three singing male Cuckoos were pretty remarkable to hear so late in June (as reported by Pete Hughes the previous evening too), and a female Mandarin with eight ducklings on the main lake represented my first confirmed breeding for the site.