Fall Breaks and Back to Winter

The dying days of November, in which autumn breathes its last and hands the baton over to winter. This ten-day period has had a little bit of everything, weather-wise, but there can be no doubting the onset of winter, not least due to the somewhat early arrival of the first Bewick's Swans, which unusually made a November appearance at Amberley on the 27th (recent years have seen arrival dates close to Christmas).

21st November

Very little time for birding today, but what I did manage to squeeze proved quite lively. First off, a ten-minute stop at Greatham Bridge on the way to work, which yielded a flock of 11 Crossbills flying west - my second Waltham Brooks tick in two days! 

Half an hour at Woods Mill at lunchtime produced a respectable 37 species, given the murky conditions. Highlights included two Firecrests, a flyover Raven and a Cetti's Warbler. 

Cetti's Warbler

22nd November

A brief check of Amberley before work, and there had clearly been a big increase in wildfowl and Lapwings since my last visit, as the flood waters have started to recede at last. The three White-fronted Geese were still present among dozens of Greylag Geese and hundreds of Canada Geese, while a single Dunlin and three Snipe were the best I could glean from some 500 or so Lapwing scattered around the site, the whole lot periodically flushed into the air by passing Marsh Harrier and Peregrine. 

A lunchtime walk out to Waltham Brooks proved relatively quiet, though the now almost daily Great White Egret was present, in flight over the river then later seen on the Amberley side. At least three Water Rails were calling around the place and a couple of Stonechats were near the railway line. 

23rd November

Just enough time today before work for a quick circuit up at Amberley Mount. It was a gorgeous, sunny morning and there again appeared to be a fair few Woodpigeons moving. I only managed 330 south in 20 minutes or so, but suspect a longer session would've produced quite a few more than that. An Amberley Mount tick was unexpected in the form of two Little Egrets which dropped in to the fields to the west, while a single Reed Bunting flew south over Downs Farm. 

Looking south from Amberley Mount

Upon arrival at Woods Mill I was greeted by Sussex Biodiversity Record Centre legend Bob Foreman who invited me to check out the contents of the moth trap he has just emptied in the garden. It was, unsurprisingly, a rather sparse catch, but did include my first ever December Moth! A species I have long wanted to see but which has always evaded me as my moth trap tends to gather dust between October and April. A lunchtime stroll round the reserve produced two new species for me here: a flyover Sparrowhawk and a heard-only Kingfisher. 

December Moth

Sparrowhawk

24th November

No real birding today owing to work commitments in Kent. 

26th November

The coldest morning of the winter so far and I was out at first light, heading to Pulborough in the hope that yesterday's Whooper Swan (found by Chris and Juliet Moore) had stuck around. Of course, after a clear night there was no sign of it or, indeed, the ringtail Hen Harrier and three White-fronted Geese also seen on Friday. The best from an hour scanning the South Brooks were a Dunlin in flight, some 80 or so Pintail, and a Peregrine in the oak at the bottom of Uppertons Field. I decided to head over to the private reservoir near Petworth for a quick look there, with scarce diving ducks and grebes on my mind. The female Long-tailed Duck was still there, for at least her 28th day, and showing well (though always too distant for decent photos). Otherwise it was relatively quiet here, with Pochard numbers in particular notably down since my last visit. Three Cattle Egrets flew west distantly towards Selham; my first record of the species here. 

Fieldfares

An early afternoon stroll at Swanbourne Lake produced the usual array of gulls and wildfowl, including at least 20 Common Gull and 30 Gadwall. 

Black-headed Gull

Late afternoon I walked out to Thorndale Bridge from home, in the hope of some owl action. It wasn't to be, but was still fairly lively, with highlights here including 3-4 squealing Water Rail, a calling Green Sandpiper (not seen), 250 Black-headed Gulls and a single Marsh Harrier south. At least three Snipe were flying about and another five flew east over River Lane on my walk home. 

26th November

No proper birding today owing to family stuff, but a quick look at one of my old haunts - Postford Pond in Chilworth - produced two Little Egrets and a roost gathering of 53 Mandarins, only just over half my record count of the species here (or anywhere!) but still quite impressive. 

27th November

A short stop at Amberley after dropping B at nursery proved rather more exciting than I'd anticipated. With the water levels even lower than my last visit, wildfowl numbers seemed to have increased again, with comfortably over a thousand ducks present, plus the lingering trio of White-fronted Geese with Greylags in the south-east corner. Another species which was present in conspicuously high numbers was Mute Swan, which got me thinking again about the Whooper I missed on Friday and the imminent arrival of the dwindling wintering Bewick's herd. 

With my thoughts along these lines, I decided to have one final scan of the swans present before I left. Two adults very distant on the northern side (about 1500m away from my viewpoint!) caught my eye, despite their heads being in the water. Something about the size, shape and jizz seemed off for Mute. Sure enough, as they lifted their heads alternately for a second or two, I caught sight of the bill of a wild swan species, not Mute. I was already late leaving for work at this point and the visibility was dreadful - not to mention the distance involved. My overall impression was of a near Mute-sized bird, with longish neck and wedge-shaped head with a generous amount of yellow in the bill. I left satisfied I had seen Whooper Swans. How wrong I was! And the niggling doubts I had as I drove to Woods Mill were validated when Paul Davy text a while later to say he'd got better views (and photos) from the Wey-South Path which clearly showed they were Bewick's Swans. An early arrival date in the Arun Valley, in a modern context. Just shows the importance of never jumping to conclusions!

Bewick's Swans - record shot from 1500m!

Aside from that excitement, not much else to report from today, though a lunchtime walk around Woods Mill did produce rather more winter thrushes than last week. 

28th November

Another beautiful sunny but cold morning with a brisk wind. I headed out quite early to Burton Mill Pond for a full walk there (including checking Chingford and Black Ponds). Compared to my last visit ten days ago or so it was relatively quiet. Although I do have to remind myself that 49 species is still a very respectable total in just under 90 minutes. Chingford Pond as usual held the bulk of the wildfowl interest, with 27 Pochard and 65 Tufted Duck the standout counts, plus a few Gadwall, Mallard and a couple of Shoveler. Black-headed Gull, Common Gull and Herring Gull were dropping in in modest numbers while others continued flying over, heading west. Heading back to my car, a Woodlark and two Ravens flew over New Piece. Incidentally, Woodlark was my 118th species recorded on eBird in November - by far and away my most species-rich November to date!

Grey Heron

A short lunchtime stroll round the local farmland produced a reasonable selection of species, with the clear highlight being a Peregrine which came in high over Lodge Hill to the north before drifting right over my head and plunging into a stoop down behind the trees near Besley Farm. I never saw the outcome of the dive, sadly!

Peregrine

Buzzard

29th November

A brief circuit up at Amberley Mount this morning in beautiful but chilly conditions produced a respectable 37 species in just over half an hour, including at least 160 Common Gulls, two Raven, heard-only Grey Partridge and Red-legged Partridge, and a Peregrine which flew through south at high speed towards The Burgh. I haven't done much birding up here away from the passage months, so am quite enjoying these quick in and out sessions before work at this time of year.

Common Gulls

Arriving at Woods Mill I was greeted again by the Song Thrush which has been belting out its song here for a week now. A lunchtime walk produced two new species for my site list here - Grey Heron and Pheasant, plus a Raven flying south, a modest flock of Fieldfare (25+) two Firecrests, and a Cetti's Warbler alarm calling near the main pond. 

30th November

An icy cold morning with leaden skies which produced the first flakes of snow of the winter. When it eventually decided to start getting light(ish) at around 8, I dashed over to Petworth for a check of the private reservoir and surrounding farmland. Wildfowl numbers had reduced on the reservoir with just ten Pochard and 35 Tufted Duck, plus five Shoveler, but the female Long-tailed Duck was still present and showed unusually well, swimming right around to the near side of the basin at one point (she's tended to always be at the furthest possible point up until today). A loop of the some of the farmland produced a few bits too including only my second ever Firecrest at this site, among a scattering of Goldcrests, quite a few Fieldfares, and a lone Lapwing in the middle of one of the fields, bizarrely picked up on call - perhaps the first hint of birds forced south by colder weather up north?

Long-tailed Duck

A quick check of Burton Mill Pond and Hadworth Farm on the way home yielded little, though two Little Grebes and five Coots at the latter show just how much water the scrape is now holding in the roadside field there, when just a few weeks ago it was bone dry. 

A brisk lunchtime walk over to Waltham Brooks from home was fairly uneventful and it somehow seemed to have got even colder, with a biting wind and still some wet snow in the air. The now usual Great White Egret was seen in flight over the river before heading over to Amberley, followed a little while later by a Little Egret. A Marsh Harrier angrily chased another one off in the same direction. The main lake held around 150 ducks, over half of which were Teal, with smaller numbers of Wigeon, Gadwall and Shoveler. 

Savage and serene in one hour

I did title my last blog post 'Fool's Spring' for good reason. After some pleasant, spring-like days in mid-February and despite the onset of meteorological spring, winter has really returned with a vengeance in early March, with only the second proper covering of snow of the winter on the ground as I write this. Emily Dickinson once said 'March is a month of expectation'. Well, it's fair to say the expectation and anticipation of spring migration has, temporarily, been placed on hold. I think a more appropriate quote right now would be: 'Our life is March weather, savage and serene in one hour.' (Ralph Waldo Emerson). 

Weather aside, I also haven't been out birding as much as usual during this ten-day period, due to some pretty dreadful personal news on the first weekend of March, although I have found getting out even for half an hour or so some days has helped, despite the weather. 

27th February

This morning I headed out to Sparrite and Greatham Commons between Rackham and Pulborough, a site I have only visited once before. The species I had in mind was Lesser Spotted Woodpecker, as the habitat here looks spot on. Sadly no joy today but I will return. The effects of excessive numbers of Fallow Deer were much in evidence, with little to no understorey vegetation across much of the landscape. The best of the birds were a Firecrest and around 40 Meadow Pipits; my largest count of the latter species locally since September.

Greatham Common

Meadow Pipit

After popping into Pulborough village mid-afternoon, I decided to stop off for a quick look at the stretch of farmland between Pulborough and Hardham, or rather a quick listen, as it was here I connected with Little Owl last year. Sure enough, I heard two different birds calling simultaneously here today, albeit rather distant and not seen. Sadly this species is getting harder and harder to find locally now - I had more records of Goshawk at a greater number of sites in 2022 than I did Little Owl and, given it's taken me until the end of February to find the latter this year, it seems 2023 will be much the same.

28th February

A quick loop of Burton and Chingford Ponds this morning proved fairly quiet, although it was good to see a pair of Great Crested Grebes on BMP (and a single on Chingford). It was nice, too, to bump into Bernie Forbes and Owen Mitchell as I was leaving, who were hoping for Lesser Spotted Woodpecker. They looked disappointed when I said I hadn't seen any - and, indeed, had had very little woodpecker activity at all - which made it even more gripping when I received a call ten minutes later to say they'd just found a LSW! Normally I would have raced back to see it but I had somewhere to be so sadly couldn't, but still a great find from them.

Later in the day, Paul Stevens came round to fit a Swift nest box and some House Martin nest cups on our house. Fingers crossed they're used in the coming years!

Swift box and House Martin nest cup

1st March

The first day of meteorological spring, not that it felt like it in the freezing north-easterly under gun metal grey skies. I was at Ashdown Forest for most of the day for a meeting about the proposed Black Grouse reintroduction project. Brief birding highlights here were singing Skylark and Stonechat at Pippingford Park and a singing Woodlark at Friends Clump.

On the way home I stopped off at Waltham Brooks which produced a single Shelduck, Little Grebe and 10 Pintail on the main lake, 60-70 Linnets into roost and a Marsh Harrier flying south, presumably to roost at Arundel. 

2nd March

A busy day for work today but I managed to get out for a couple of hours late morning/early afternoon, the first sunny day for a while just too much to bear while trying to work indoors. Although it was still bitterly cold in the north-easterly wind, the sunshine brought some raptors out to play, and I managed seven species of bird of prey from a local skywatch, including one of the White-tailed Eagles thermalling distantly over Amberley and a 'first adult' plumage female Goshawk which drifted quite low into a nearby wood. This was the closest I have seen Goshawk to home but sadly it was clearly too windy and cold to coax her back out as I didn't see her again. Other highlights included a distant Peregrine, a few Common Gulls heading north and a small but pronounced south-westerly movement of Stocks Doves in small groups.

A dusk walk down the lane didn't produce a great deal apart from a Chiffchaff calling in one of the hedgerows; the first one I've had this year away from the wintering hotspots like Coldwaltham sewage works. 

Stock Doves

3rd March

Taking advantage of another bright start to the day (albeit icy), I headed out ten minutes before sunrise for a stroll through local farmland to the Arun. Not a massive amount to report from an hour session here really although it was nice to hear Great Spotted Woodpeckers going for it so early in the morning, as well as Marsh Tit, Blackbird, Reed Bunting and Chiffchaff in full song. 7 Snipe flushed up from the marshy ground near the river, while a pair of Stonechats were just across the river on the western side of Amberley Wildbrooks.

Treecreeper

After dropping B at nursery I headed over to Pulborough Brooks for an hour or so. One of my target species here was Avocet, which I seem to keep missing recently, despite the first report of a returning bird being a couple of weeks ago now. Luckily, today was the day my luck changed and I found three roosting together on the North Brooks. Other highlights here were comfortably a thousand or more Lapwing (~200 on the North Brooks and at least 800 on the South Brooks), with 3 Ruff among them, two Marsh Harriers and two Peregrines (an adult female on the South Brooks and an immature female inadvertently flushed from the big Ash tree near the Hanger viewpoint, midway through its breakfast by the looks of it!)

Lapwings

4th March

I was busy working on the book all morning but managed to get out for a couple of hours around lunchtime. First up I headed over to Pulborough Brooks, specifically, Wiggonholt Common, to try and catch up with the Crossbills seen there yesterday. This species, along with all northern finches, has been in seriously short supply this winter. In fact, a check of eBird told me it's been over seven months since I last saw one. It didn't take too long to pick one bird up in flight, giving its distinctive chup chup call and, a little later, I had distant views of three birds together in the tops of pine near the tumulus - adult male and female and a third bird which I couldn't age or sex due to the distance and bad light, but Jon Winder later reported two males and a female. 

Crossbill

After this I headed over to my private WeBS site near Petworth which produced some impressive numbers of gulls moving from the farm reservoir to the ploughed fields and back. Exact counts were hard to ascertain due to the constant to-ing and fro-ing, but given there were birds drifting around the whole time I managed a minimum of 120 Black-headed Gulls and 140 Common Gulls, many of the latter looking resplendent in their summer plumage. Certainly one of my best gull counts here to date. Otherwise not much of note aside from a scattering of Tufted Ducks, Shoveler and 3 Gadwall.

Common and Black-headed Gulls

 5th March

No birding today.

6th March

A very brief look at Waltham Brooks this morning in passing produced 4 Little Grebe, 9 Pintail and a single Shelduck on the main lake along with another Shelduck flying high south-west.

7th March

This afternoon I headed out for a 1k area walk, first to Thorndale Bridge via the local farmland then up the river to Waltham Brooks. Highlights included the two White-tailed Eagles circling high over the Downs, an adult Great Black-backed Gull north and the usual ducks on the main lake, including a single Shelduck and 8 Pintail. A Barn Owl gave a brief fly-by here too. At the sewage works were a single Grey Wagtail, at least 5 Chiffchaffs and singing Treecreeper and Goldcrest.

8th March

I was surprised to wake up and see a centimetre or so of snow on the ground and rooftops this morning. After dropping B at nursery I dropped in at Pulborough for a quick whizz round, as I was passing on my way somewhere. I was hoping the snow and murk might have forced down a Kittiwake but no such luck. A nice selection of waders were on the North Brooks though, with two pairs of Avocets busily feeding along with 6 Dunlin and two roosting Black-tailed Godwits. Otherwise, a very wintry feel to proceedings, though duck numbers had noticeably dropped since my last visit. 

Pulborough, 20th-21st October

A mixed weekend at Pulborough. Water levels steadily increasing along with Wigeon and Lapwing numbers (conservative counts of 220 and 400 today, respectively). Yesterday there were three Black-tailed Godwits and a single Redshank on the North Brooks, with another two Redshanks seen at Hails View. Noticeably more Goldcrests around but surprisingly few thrushes, with just fifteen Redwing, ten each of Blackbird and Song Thrush and a single Fieldfare. A good selection of flyover bits with singles of Crossbill and Brambling the highlights. A Little Owl was calling loudly but remained unseen on the east side of the reserve. A couple of hours this afternoon produced a Barn Owl at Redstart Corner, a heard only Water Rail from the Hanger and a flyover Green Sandpiper near Winpenny while highlights on the North Brooks (among the Lapwing and Wigeon) were two Pintail, two Common Gulls, six Gadwall, 10+ Snipe, a Little Egret and a striking leucistic Black-headed Gull. Friday's Redstart was reported again at West Mead but I didn't see it. A rather faded Clouded Yellow was on the wing in Brook Field.

Distant and grainy phonescope shots as is the norm at Pulborough but clear enough to see the overall slim build, thin bill, pointed wings and total absence of black in the wing on this presumed leucistic Black-headed Gull on the North Brooks this afternoon

 

Possibly the most entertaining moment of the weekend was watching a Grey Heron wrestling with an Eel at Winpenny on Saturday morning. The Eel was near enough the same length as the Heron's body and although the Heron managed to swallow it whole on several occasions the Eel managed to wriggle its way back out every time. Eventually the Heron stabbed the unfortunate creature a few times with its bill before carrying it off, bloodied, into the reeds.