Elmley, 9th-10th September

Like most of us, Kate and I have been feeling in pretty dire need of a break this year, so we decided to have a night away at Elmley on Sheppey.

I've visited Sheppey many times for birding day trips over the years but always in the winter, and never stayed the night, so it made a nice change to be there at this time of year - and to wake up looking out across the Swale from our shepherds hut, 'Samphire'.

Highlights of the 36 or so hours included an Osprey fishing in the Swale, Barn Owl hunting right past the hut at dusk, Great Egret, Hobby, 8 Spotted Redshanks, thousands of Starlings and dozens of Yellow Wagtails.

We're booked in for another couple of nights next May and honestly can't wait!

Our home for the night - shepherds hut 'Samphire'

Swallows

Wheatear

Avocet

Spotted Redshanks

Black-tailed Godwits

Little Grebe

Brown Hare

Sedge Warbler

What doldrums?

June is typically the month when birding can get rather slow and repetitive, especially on a local patch. Quite apart from the extraordinary run of megas on a national scale in recent weeks, it’s also been pretty good at Pulborough, despite the fact I’ve not had a year tick since the end of May. 

Missing the Sanderling on the 11th was pretty gripping to say the least, especially as as far as I’m aware it’s the first record for the reserve since 2013. Still an excellent find by the Friday crew, just a shame I was halfway to Yorkshire at the time!

Sanderling, 11th June. Photo by Warren B

The Shelduck family are still present on the North Brooks, the six ducklings growing bigger by the day, while the lingering female Pintail is also still about - presumably here for the summer now. 

The lingering Pintail

The best news this past week has been the arrival of the first Avocet chicks of the year, after two failed attempts in the spring. Three chicks have been seen on the pool at West Mead since the weekend, and the adults have been doing a great job of chasing off any passing Lesser Black-backed Gulls and Carrion Crows. The hide at West Mead is still closed, so the best place to get a glimpse of them is with a scope from the tea terrace or by the dipping pond behind the visitor centre.

There have also been up to eight adult Avocets on the North Brooks of late, so perhaps we'll see some more chicks in the coming weeks. West Mead is also hosting a reasonable number of Lapwing chicks at the moment too, which is great to see. Redshank numbers seem to be increasing although I've still not seen any chicks as yet. 

Avocets at West Mead, photo by Andy Ashdown

The first returning Green Sandpipers are starting to trickle through with singles seen on the 17th and the 20th. A Wood Sandpiper on the North Brooks on the 14th was a little unexpected, although strangely the third year in a row we’ve had a mid June record of the species here. Presumably failed breeders returning from Scandinavia.

Highlights along the Arun recently have included regular Kingfisher sightings, good numbers of Reed Warblers (attracting the attentions of a Cuckoo or two) and presumably the same Great Crested Grebe I've seen from time to time here since April. I've only seen one on its own but have heard anecdotal records from a dog walker of two together recently.

Great Crested Grebe

The heath is always good value at this time of year with several recent evening visits producing at least three Nightjars, a roding Woodcock plus the delightful background soundtrack from the Field Crickets, more of which have been recently translocated here from Farnham. 

After a bumper spring for singing male Nightingales around the reserve (at least ten), the scrubby areas around the main trail are now busy with whistling and croaking adults tending to fledglings. The best areas to see or hear one are Adder Alley, the Hanger, or anywhere between the top of the Zig Zag path and Fattengates.

Whilst it isn't exactly a popular topic of conversation among non-birding friends and family, now we've passed the Summer Solstice, we can really start thinking about autumn and the first dispersing migrants. Waders should really get going in July, followed by the first proper waves of returning passerines in August. I'm still missing the likes of Whinchat, Redstart and Tree Pipit for my Pulborough year list, so these will be among the species on my radar in the next few weeks.

Snow on the last day of Winter

Well, not really, but tomorrow is the first day of meteorological Spring and this morning did deliver two white gifts from the heavens in the form of an Avocet and a Mediterranean Gull, both on the North Brooks and both year ticks (102).

The Avocet spent much of the morning feeding in the larger back pool before wandering over to the shallow edge to roost. When it did so I caught sight of a red ring on one tibia. Despite watching it for quite some time I didn't see the other tibia to confirm that one had a matching ring but it seems very likely this is last year's breeding male returning, as that bird had red rings on both tibias. It will be great to have them back again this spring, if so.

Avocet

The Med Gull was an adult moulting in to breeding plumage. It dropped out of the sky with a bunch of Black-headed Gulls and Common Gulls, then hung around for a while before flying off south.

Mediterranean Gull

Other highlights from this morning's 77 species total included five Tufted Ducks (three drakes), four Ruff (including one with a smart white collar), five Dunlin, a single Golden Plover, four Black-tailed Godwits, two Red Kites, two Peregrines and at least ten singing Chiffchaffs. Full checklist here.

Autumn?

Yes, it’s that time of year again when birders unsettle their friends, families and unsuspecting Twitter followers by dropping the A word into conversation as often as possible.

Meteorologically and astronomically speaking of course it’s utter nonsense but there can be no denying that the breeding season is over for many birds and return passage is now well underway, as has been evidenced by the amount of waders at Pulborough these past couple of weeks.

All the usual familiar species are beginning to trickle back through, and in some good numbers already with high counts of 50 Black-tailed Godwits (3rd), at least eight Green Sandpiper and nine Little Ringed Plover (12th), and smaller numbers of Greenshank (two on the 8th), Redshank, etc. A nice male Ruff just coming out of breeding plumage was present on the 9th while a Curlew flew over on the 10th.

Juvenile LRP

Best of all have been a group of six Avocet present intermittently from the 5th to the time of writing - my highest count of the species here. On Saturday I noticed that one of the birds is colour ringed and I've now received the report back from the ringer, Graham Giddens. The bird (a male) was ringed as a chick at Needs Ore in Hampshire on 16th June 2014. Since then it has toured around the Hampshire coast and wintered every year at Poole Harbour. This year it successfully reared four young with an unringed female at Normandy Marsh near Lymington. Interestingly, these six all appear to be adults so perhaps the male has left the female with the young and tagged on with this new group for summer break in West Sussex.

The ringed male Avocet on the North Brooks

Other non-wader bits of note recently include a very early returning Whinchat on the 6th - my first on the patch this year - and the first signs of Mediterranean Gull dispersal with three present on the afternoon of the 10th. Could this be the year Pulborough gets a Yellow-legged?

Mind the Gap

So yes, as I was saying, June has been quiet...

That wonderfully simple yet accurate term in the butterflying community - 'the June gap' - used to describe the midsummer lull between the dwindling of the spring species and the full emergence of the high summer ones could, I always think, be just as readily applied to birding at this time of year.

Of course there are plenty of resident and migrant birds busy breeding everywhere but still there is that unavoidable sense of things getting distinctly quiet come mid-June and with the spring being so late in getting going this year the onset of the doldrums felt particularly sudden and pronounced, and even I must admit to having found the urge to get up at 5 to hit the patch most mornings waning somewhat recently.

Adult and juvenile Rooks

There have nonetheless been a few birds of note at Pulborough this month with more records of Osprey and Garganey in the past couple of weeks (I still haven't caught up with the former on patch!) and the odd couple of Mediterranean Gulls here and there. What was presumably the same Avocet pair from earlier in the year made a brief reappearance on the North Brooks on the 8th, while the Winpenny area has been playing host to at least one Snipe throughout the breeding season. The seemingly solitary male Nightjar continues to call near Black Pond every evening I've checked, and it's been good to see at least one Barn Owl around on most visits lately - thankfully some of them made it through that awful end to the winter.

After the excitement of the Royal Tern at Pagham, the following evening (20th) delivered my first and so far only patch year tick of June in the form of two Common Terns flying south over the North Brooks. This was particularly noteworthy for me as it's the first Tern of any species on my Pulborough list.

Med Gull over Winpenny, 18th June

Thankfully, the four week quiet spell seems to be coming to an end with the first hints of birds beginning to move again in the past few days. On Sunday morning the Brooks held six Little Ringed Plovers and three Green Sandpipers - one of which dropped down in front of Winpenny for barely three minutes before flying off south at height - and a Sand Martin was noted powering south overhead; the first one I've seen here for a while so presumably not a local bird. Then last night I woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of a Water Rail calling as it flew over the house. With the evenings gradually beginning to draw in from now on (I get told off if I mention that to my other half...) and July just around the corner, hopefully wader passage will really get going in the coming few weeks.

Signs that the butterfly June Gap is coming to an end were evident on Sunday also, with singles of White-letter Hairstreak and White Admiral seen along with good numbers of Purple Hairstreak. Also of note were my first two Brown Hawkers of the year and two Water Voles plopping into the ditches on the recently opened Wetland Discovery Trail.

White-letter Hairstreak

Two other bits of good news worth a mention: I was delighted to read that the breeding waders at Pulborough have had such a good year with 41 Lapwing chicks and 10 Redshank chicks successfully reared, thanks in no small part to the hard work put in by all the RSPB staff and volunteers. Secondly, I was also pleased to hear that my record of a juvenile Iceland Gull flying over the visitor centre on 2nd April was accepted by the Sussex rarities committee, making it the first record for Pulborough Brooks!

Juvenile Lapwing

May so far...

It's been a busy couple of weeks and, with the days getting longer, computer time has now inevitably taken a backseat to time in the field - hence the rather reduced amount of blog posts recently, particularly when it comes to the patch stuff.

It's fair to say it's been a challenging spring for birders (unless you happen to have been lucky enough to be on Shetland this past week!) and, indeed, birds. Many species have been arriving later than usual, in reduced numbers or in some cases not at all.

At Pulborough the lion's share of migrant species have arrived or passed through now, it seems, although numbers do seem rather low in many cases. There certainly seem to be three Nightingale territories as far as I can ascertain, but seemingly no more. A couple of weeks ago we were all hopeful that they and many other birds were just delayed and on their way but it does now seem as though many birds just aren't coming back this year, which is a little worrying.

Wader passage has been rather slow to get going too. After the excitement of the Black-winged Stilt at the end of April and a little flurry of LRPs, Common Sandpipers and the odd Whimbrel and Wood Sandpiper, there's wasn't much of note during the first half of May aside from the lingering Avocet pair and a couple of Greenshank. Singles of Ringed Plover and Spotted Redshank on Friday provided a little more promise though - hopefully spring has a few more tricks up its sleeve yet. In more positive news it was good this week to see the first Lapwing chicks appearing on the Mid Brooks, hopefully to be followed soon by young Redshanks.

Avocets

Probably the standout bird so far this month was a long overdue drake Garganey found by Alan Baker at Winpenny on the 17th. Perhaps half of a pair that has bred nearby, they're a species I never tire of seeing - particularly the males. Typically, I missed the bird first thing as I'd opted to check out Hail's View and Black Wood before work, where I did at least find my first patch Spotted Flycatcher of the year, but thankfully the Garganey stayed until the evening. Indeed, as of yesterday it was present for its third day but there were no reports of it today.

Spotted Flycatcher

Garganey - distant but unmistakeable!

One of the male Cuckoos (there were definitely two singing for a short while a couple of weeks ago) has now paired up - if one can call the rather half-hearted relationship that Cuckoos engage in 'pairing up'! I saw them both together in Fattengates Field on the 5th and the male has not been singing quite so much this past week. The local Dunnocks must be getting nervous now! After a brief lull it was good to see and hear Lesser Whitethroats along Adder Alley and at The Hanger again this week. Also encouraging via Liam Curson was a singing male Redstart in Black Wood on the 16th. A species still absent from my Pulborough list, hopefully it sticks around and finds a mate, if not I'll probably have to wait until the autumn to catch up with one.

An evening vigil on the heath on the 13th produced my first Pulborough Nightjar, with one briefly churring rather distantly to the south of The Clump around 21:20. It actually sounded like it was probably just south of the Greatham road, but a patch tick is a still a patch tick! My Pulborough year list now stands on 137 with still all to play for, with Yellow Wagtail, Osprey and various waders still among the 'easy' additions to the list in what's left of spring.

Tawny Owl - the popular family near West Mead seem to have moved on now after the RSPB wisely chose to temporarily shut the path for the birds' protection

Kestrel at Winpenny

Away from the patch, and possibly one of my most memorable birding moments to date came on Bank Holiday Monday when, a couple of hours into an otherwise rather unremarkable visible migration watch from Leith Hill Tower, Wes Attridge clocked four 'interesting' birds tracking east along the North Downs. We Leith Hill-ers always joke about Wes's extraordinary abilities to not only pick up birds at distance but also to identify them before most of us have even got eyes on them, so for him to hesitate at the ID on these four immediately hinted at them being something a bit special.

Sure enough, I'd barely got my scope on them before he'd already ruled out Cormorant/gull/wader and exclaimed 'Are these...Skuas?!!'. As they banked around in front of Box Hill and the London skyline and started powering south past Leith Hill towards the coast, we could clearly make out the broad but pointed wings with white flashes towards the tip, the overall dark colouration, the bulky head and barrel chest and short tail of GREAT SKUAS. A Surrey lifer for me, and totally unprecedented. We had them in view for over ten minutes before they eventually disappeared into the mist towards the Shoreham Gap. Totally unforgettable and one of those heartstopping moments every birder dreams of.

The view from Leith Hill Tower on what shall forever be remembered as 'Bonxie Day'

The memory of that day was still fresh in the mind when Wes and I convened with Ed Stubbs and Stuart Cossey pre-dawn on the 12th to attempt to defend our title as Mole Valley Bird Race champions for the third year running. Despite the very worst conditions - heavy rain all afternoon - on top of the aforementioned disappointing spring, we still managed 89 species which I'm pleased to say was enough for us to secure the hat trick. As is always the way though with bird races, there's always some odd omissions - we spectacularly failed to find a Sparrowhawk all day and, rather more worryingly, not one of the teams managed to record Tree Pipit, despite the heath at Leith Hill being a failsafe location for them in all previous years. On a positive note though Cuckoo numbers seem up this year, particularly at Leith Hill where there must have been at least four or five singing males.

Tawny Owl chick, ringed in Capel by Wes and Stu during a brief break in the bird race

Finally for this round-up, I couldn't resist a bit of an excursion to the furthest corner of East Sussex yesterday to see the Terek Sandpiper at Rye Harbour. A new bird for me, it showed beautifully in the sunshine for all present. On the odd occasion I do bother to twitch it's always an added bonus to run into some friendly faces as well as the target bird, and yesterday was no exception as it was a pleasant surprise to see Oliver Simms and Steve Gale down there.

Terek Sandpiper

 

Whether or not May is still to deliver a flood of very late migrants or a nice local overshoot (Little Bittern please!), it's reassuring to remember the days start getting shorter again in just over a month which means the start of return migration is just a few weeks away... You're welcome!

Pulborough round-up, 11th-20th April

Somehow it's been over a week already since my last post on here. Probably an indication that things are beginning to liven up a bit at last!

Dawn at The Hanger

I've added eight year ticks in ten days since the Bramblings last week, taking my Pulborough year total to a respectable 123. First up on in thick fog on Saturday morning I decided to shun the hides and viewpoints in favour of a quick jaunt up to the heath in the hope the vis would improve (it eventually did at around 11:00 - just as I was about to head home!). After a circuit around The Clump there appeared to be little of note until a familiar song alerted me to a Tree Pipit perched in one of the Oaks up there - a Pulborough tick for me and apparently not as common here as I had perhaps assumed given the available habitat.

When the fog did eventually clear on Saturday it enabled the first proper look across the North Brooks of the weekend which, evidently, was Spoonbill-less for the first time in several days. 
No such problems finding the now regular Great White Egret even in the fog though as it showed down to just a few metres in front of Winpenny Hide, again favouring the local newts its seems. Reports from various other birders and RSPB volunteers suggest there are still two different birds frequenting the site, with one on the Mid Brooks late this afternoon.

The Spoonbill on the North Brooks on its last day

Sunday saw the arrival of a pair of Avocets and the first Whimbrel of the year. The Avocet pair stayed until Thursday, and were often seen copulating, but were gone by today. The Whimbrel stayed until at least Tuesday but on Thursday morning I instead found a Curlew from Winpenny Hide which flew off calling loudly. It was good to hear the first Cuckoo of the year the same morning, which was still around again today, seemingly somewhere between Hail's View and West Mead but proving characteristically ventriloquial!

Whimbrel - photo by Gary Trew

Avocets

Warbler numbers have gradually been creeping up, with noticeably more Blackcaps around, at least three Lesser Whitethroats, a few Sedge Warblers and my first Common Whitethroats at last today, with three favouring the bushes along the footpath between Wiggonholt and Pulborough village. There are perhaps three singing male Nightingales on site now that I've heard myself, with the one near Fattengates proving to be the most reliable performer. Hirundines still seem rather thin on the ground, though a little flurry of at least three House Martins, three Swallows and two Sand Martins through in the rain on Sunday was good to see. Just three Swallows through from Hail's View today though during my almost six hour visit, plus singles of House and Sand Martin over the garden. It was great to finally catch up with a Pulborough Wheatear today though - my first of the spring here - with one very distant from Hail's View and another on a fence post out on the North Brooks.

Most unexpected during the week was the very vocal flock of 30 Mediterranean Gulls which flew north over the Brooks/village at dawn on the 18th - I was just getting in my car at the time but managed to glimpse them for a few seconds between buildings and trees. Colin Nicholson also saw them pass over the Brooks, and interestingly Mark McManus had 35 take off from Amberley Wildbrooks and head the same way an hour later - same birds doing a loop or another flock perhaps? There's certainly been good numbers moving along the coast this week.

Sadly I missed the Wood Sandpiper found by George Kinnard yesterday. Indeed, wader numbers were particularly low today aside from a single Dunlin and the resident Redshanks and Lapwings.

The mini heatwave and run of southerlies seems to be coming to an end for now, so it'll be interesting to see what the next few days bring - no doubt something mega will turn up as I'm off to Spain tomorrow until Wednesday!

Incidentally, things have been getting rather more interesting on the nocmig side of things too, with garden firsts of Curlew and Water Rail over recently along with the second record of Common Scoter, but more on that in another blog post.

Pulborough, 10th-11th March

A weekend of reasonably mild weather which saw an increase in birdsong and apparent seasonal movement, with three new birds for the patch year list taking my total to 99.

The Woodlark continues to announce its presence over the heath and on both days this weekend was heard straight away as I arrived in the car park. It was good to discover two birds now present and the RSPB locking the gates to the central section of the heath to prevent disturbance.

Woodlark

It's clearly not just the Woodlarks thinking about breeding as one of the seven Grey Herons seen on Saturday was flying over the visitor centre with an impressively large piece of nesting material. The large flock of Linnets is still favouring the area around the ploughed field immediately behind the visitor centre; certainly well over a hundred birds in total but hard to get an accurate count as they're always so flighty!

Grey Heron

Linnets

Meanwhile, it was good to hear my first patch Chiffchaff of the year singing intermittently near the top of the Zig Zag path on Saturday. The North Brooks held c.175 Black-tailed Godwits, an Avocet (only my second ever here after one on 13th January this year), ten Shelduck, three Little Egrets and a single Dunlin which flew off towards the South Brooks. Finished off Saturday's visit with a look at Hails View which produced another dozen Shelduck, two Dunlin, two Egyptian Geese, a Grey Wagtail and a pair of Gadwall.

Avocet on the North Brooks

On Saturday afternoon we took some non-birding friends for a little walk around The Burgh. Evidently we were in the wrong area for the Short-eared Owls but it was nice to run into the ringtail Hen Harrier again, with a supporting cast of at least eight Red Kites, two Ravens, four Lapwing, heard only Red-legged & Grey Partridge and a minimum of three hundred Common Gulls. I've still yet to have a bad session up here, no matter what the weather. Surely one of the best sites of its kind in the south-east?

Sunday at the Brooks began with the Woodlark and at least two Chiffchaffs again in fine voice. It was good to see a pair of Redshanks from Winpenny as well as three distant Dunlin. Something spooked all the waders at one point which revealed the presence of four previously unseen Golden Plover which flew north over the hide. Another single bird flew north-east over Brook Field later in the morning.

Golden Plover over Brook Field

Lapwings seem to be pairing up and getting territorial now, as do Shelducks, with the odd one flying around and checking out the grassy slopes of Hollybush Hill. At least 26 on site on Sunday was a patch record count of this species for me. On the North Brooks on Sunday morning were c.130 Black-tailed Godwits, three Little Egrets, a lone and vocal drake Gadwall and another couple of Dunlin, while a Raven cronked north-west high overhead. Highlights from Hails View, meanwhile, were two each of Peregrine and Red Kite and heard only Water Rail and Red-legged Partridge, the latter a Pulborough lifer! A quick scan from The Hanger in the afternoon produced the third and final year tick of the weekend in the form of a pair of Coots; a surprisingly infrequent sight here but right on cue as we're getting into peak rail migration season now - in fact I've heard one calling through the bedroom window the past couple of nights, presumably flying overhead. I experimented the other night with setting up my nocmig microphone through the attic window so as to get a bit closer to the action (and less background noise from the neighbours!) so will let you know how that worked out in a future blog post.

Raven over Jupp's View

Patch gold!