2018 Nocmig Review

2018 was my first full year nocmigging here in Pulborough. For a bit of an intro to it all, check out my blog post from earlier in the year.

It took me a while to get into the swing of it in the spring but once up and running the year produced a nice selection of species from 57 nights' recording. Obvious highlight was the Yellow-browed Warbler on 8th October but other bits of note were Common Scoter, Brent Goose, Bewick's Swan, White-fronted Goose and a reasonable selection of waders including patch scarcities such as Oystercatcher and Whimbrel. Also noteworthy was the sensational movement of Dunlin on 15th/16th November with at least 147 calls from a minimum of 39 birds.

I was a bit late getting started with recording again in the autumn due to the very worthwhile distraction of my wedding, so missed out on the chance of getting an Ortolan Bunting in what seemed like another good passage of them. Hopefully now I've got the hang of it all I'll be able to hit the ground running in 2019 and record more frequently.

Check out the table below for the full list - note that some species such as Barn Owl, Skylark and Moorhen are mostly likely to be local birds but have been included in here for posterity and completeness. I've tried where possible to omit birds that were clearly just piping up in the dawn chorus nearby such as Chiffchaff, House Sparrow or Woodpigeon.

Pulborough, mid-late November.

There’s a lot to love about this time of year. The arrival en masse of wintering wildfowl, thrushes, finches, owls, crisp frosty mornings, the excitement of cold weather movements bringing with it an increased chance of something scarce or rare. What’s not so great is the heavy reduction of available time in the field due to the dwindling amount of daylight, which inevitably increases the chance of missing stuff, especially when one's patch is such a well-watched reserve as Pulborough.

As such I’ve no new year ticks to report since my last update on here although I’m still smarting from missing the Red-breasted Merganser on the 16th. Unlike Cattle Egret and a few other dips this year which I’m reasonably confident I’ll grip back at some stage, there’s only been one previous documented record of RBM at Pulborough, back in 2009. Hopefully I won't have to wait another decade for the next one!

Gutted!

The Brooks are filling up nicely now thanks to a fairly wet second half of November and the flocks of Wigeon, Teal, Lapwing etc are now getting sizeable - best appreciated when a passing raptor sends the whole lot piling up into the sky with an almighty whoosh! As has become the norm here the wintering Black-tailed Godwit numbers are now well into three figures too, former warden Pete Hughes reckoned there were around 300 first thing this morning.

With actual patch birding now restricted to (often wet) weekend-only sessions my attentions have turned rather more towards nocmigging, the dark and stormy evenings of late providing the ideal opportunity to catch up on a backlog of recordings from earlier in the autumn. With more and more birders venturing into this new extension of ornithological study this autumn in particular has proved revealing in terms of the nationwide scale of some species' movements. A busy night for Redwings on the 14th-15th November was accurately reflected in Pulborough when I recorded 322 calls in ten hours.

Redwing/Wigeon duet

Assuming each call represents at least one or two birds, but likely many more, it's fair to assume at least a thousand birds passed over the house that night. Likewise, when Simon Gillings and Jon Heath - both Cambridge-based 'nocmiggers' - reported an unusually high count of Dunlin the following night (15th-16th), I was keen to discover if my own recording reflected this, which it did indeed as a total of 148 flight calls were logged from a bare minimum of 38 birds. The true count was likely far higher. Take this clip below, for example. It's quite evidently more than one bird (I put it down as two) but as others have pointed out it could be four or five or more.

It's really quite incredible to think about such swathes of birds moving above our heads while we're sleeping. As I've said before, migration is for my money the most fascinating aspect of bird study - and so intrinsic to our understanding of birds in general - and nocmigging is, I'm discovering, an opportunity to glimpse just that little bit further into their world and start to fill in the gaps in terms of what birds are moving, when and why.

Pulborough round-up, late October

Great to finally complete the set of British Owls on my Pulborough list recently with the addition of Short-eared Owl, seen first from behind the visitor centre on the evening of the 23rd then subsequently added to the garden list the following evening, seen over the North Brooks from my attic - then again on Sunday evening quartering up and down the banks of the Stor.

Short-eared Owl over the North Brooks on Sunday. Photo by Istvan Radi

Keeping with the (sort of) nocturnal theme, the nocmig adventures continue as I'm still working through the past week's backlog of recordings. A recent highlight was what sounded like at least two or three Brent Geese flying over not long after midnight on the 19th. There's always a few vismig records of this species in the southeast at this time of year as they 'cut the corner' from the east coast to the south coast, but still a nice one to get on nocmig and only my second record since I started recording at the end of last year.

Other highlights from the past weekend were at least three each of Marsh Harrier (including an adult male) and Red Kite on Saturday plus two Shelduck, a Little Egret and a heard only Water Rail below the Hanger. Duck numbers continue to increase with at least four hundred Wigeon and eight Pintail on Sunday. Eighteen hundred Woodpigeons flew southwest in an hour on Saturday morning, while down on the South Brooks a White-fronted Goose bearing a red leg ring was in with the Greylags - presumably not a wild bird as I believe it's been seen on and off a few times in recent weeks.

Meanwhile, on Sunday morning Paul had a Ruff with the Lapwings at Hail's View; a species that has been notable by its absence at Pulborough this autumn, especially compared to last year when we had a pretty remarkable count of 26 together on one day in late September. Presumably not a good breeding season for them, as has been the case for many shorebirds it seems.

Gary Trew had a ringtail Hen Harrier over the South Brooks yesterday and a Dunlin with the Lapwings on the North Brooks, while the Hen Harrier showed again today for Russ Tofts followed by another Short-eared Owl sighting and Woodock over the car park via Gary T.

Nocmig gold - YBW!

I've been nocmigging pretty much every other night so far this month, weather permitting, which means I've inevitably ended up with a bit of a backlog of recordings to go through. A dark and rainy evening last Sunday provided the perfect opportunity to do a bit a of catching up and I set about working my way through the night of the 8th/9th.

A nice and clear Water Rail was a good start but there wasn't a huge amount else of note until an odd little 'V' shape at 23:25hrs caught my eye. Clearly rather quiet, I initially took it to be a slightly odd Redwing call, but then the penny dropped. I checked on Xeno-canto and, sure enough, the recordings and sonograms on there proved that mine was a perfect match for Yellow-browed Warbler. Given the numbers in the country at this time of year I suppose it's inevitable that many must fly straight over at night, but it's still quite extraordinary to imagine this tiny little bird calling as it cruised over Pulborough. A Sussex, Pulborough and garden tick triple - or at least it would have been had I not been asleep at the time!

Sonogram of the YBW over Pulborough and one from Xeno-canto to compare (below)

And here's the Water Rail from earlier in the night