2020 at Pulborough Brooks – The Strangest of Years - a review of the year from volunteer Phil.
It is that traditional time of year when the media and bloggers throughout the world write reviews of the year, something I’ve never thought of doing before. The reason I have decided to write this review is of course because of the unusual situation we have all found ourselves in. But it is not just that. As well as a very frustrating and worrying year it has been a hugely interesting one.
There has been unusual weather probably driven by climate change and there has been some interesting and unusual wildlife activity on the reserve, possibly also linked to climate change. Some of this has been good and some of it less so.
So here is my account of 2020 at Pulborough Brooks. It is purely personal and there is much more that could be written, especially by our wardens who have been working throughout. Some of that can be found in previous articles on this blog and to amplify this account I’ve included some links to other articles I’ve written.
My story begins a little early on Friday 20th December 2019, the day of our Friday Hides and Trails team Christmas Lunch in the café, an unfortunate casualty in 2020. A very wet spell of weather beforehand had brought huge amounts of water down the River Arun and I spent much of the day watching it cascade over the riverbank, even more so from the tributary River Stor next to the North Brooks, as well as taking several photos in various parts of the reserve to record the growing flood. A fuller account of this day complete with photos is at Recent Sightings Friday 20th December – Another Great Flood - Pulborough Brooks - Pulborough Brooks - The RSPB Community
Happily our wardens must have done a great job of keeping the sluice gates clear so, over the course of a relatively dry Christmas and New Year period while I was away, much of the excess water had drained back into the river and the Brooks looked in typically wet winter condition on my return. However this was to be the first of 3 major flooding events over a 2 month period and set the scene for the first quarter of 2020.
For people who managed to wade through the flood over the Christmas period Winpenny Hide was found to be a refuge for snakes and insects. Nettleys Hide was cut off by deeper water and when access was regained the tide mark on the walls was found to be 18 inches above the floor.
Many small mammals such as mice and voles were driven to edges of the Brooks by the rising water. This had the effect of concentrating the food supply for barn owls and kestrels to the edges of the brooks. This was most noticeable between West Mead and Winpenny and a hunting barn owl in the later afternoon became a regular sight particularly during February.
This was probably the same bird that was using first West Mead hide and then the Fattengates shelter as a place to eat its dinner and the evidence of droppings can still be seen at the shelter
Other predators seen near Redstart Corner in March included a very handsome kestrel which obligingly perched on a nearby fencepost and allowed me to take its portrait
Also, a cute looking weasel which I watched for about 10 minutes darting in and out of the long grass by the deer fence.
As March wore on thoughts turned to the breeding wader survey programme and, with floodwater still affecting the Brooks, I wondered whether it would be possible to erect the temporary electric fence in time to protect the breeding lapwings and their eggs and chicks from the ever hungry foxes. However, all the while the news about Covid spreading round the world was getting worse and there was an uncomfortable feeling that it would soon become a major problem in the UK. I managed one wader monitoring session and was on the verge of doing a 2nd when the announcement of Lockdown 1 with immediate effect put a complete stop to my attendance for over 2 months.
During late March April and May I had to content myself with local walks. I am fortunate to live next to a beautiful area of chalk grassland on the North Downs and this is a time when wildflowers are starting to emerge in abundance. Along with these come butterflies and I occasionally thought of species that I could be seeing at Pulborough. One of my favourites is the colourful orange tip, but while the flash of orange is often seen at Pulborough in these Spring months it is less easy to see the astonishing green and white camouflage of the underwings. This is most often seen when the butterfly visits cow parsley. During lockdown I was fortunate enough to have the perfect opportunity to see and photograph this just ¼ mile from my house.
Being back at Pulborough in early June was a wonderful change but a completely different experience. No longer was I allowed into the Visitor Centre and had to miss those long chats in the office catching up with all the news. Many of the people I was so used to seeing had been furloughed and I found I could not communicate any more by email text or phone. So there was always a tinge of sadness that people who help to make this place special were out of reach. At least the Volunteer Support Team managed to keep active by producing regular Newsletters.
Despite this rather sad state of affairs my return to Pulborough Brooks found some new wildlife doing well. I had already become aware that avocets had been breeding on the reserve for the first time and sure enough a pair of adults and 4 chicks about a week old could be seen on the North Brooks just too far away to photograph. Over the course of the next few weeks all 4 chicks fledged but unfortunately one appeared to sustain wing damage and was eventually predated. Still 3 out of 4 chicks successfully reared is a good record. Maybe the pair will return next year and bring some other avocets with them. On one June visit I counted 12 avocets on the N Brooks including the 4 juveniles, which feels like it should be a record number. More about these avocets can be found at this link Avocets Breeding at Pulborough Brooks – a first for the reserve - Pulborough Brooks - Pulborough Brooks - The RSPB Community
In June I managed to hear a few snatches of nightingale song in the Fattengates area. The wardens reported that there may have been a small increase in breeding nightingale numbers after declines in recent years, suggesting that work started in 2019 to improve hedgerow and scrub management was beginning to have an effect.
It was also reported that despite the winter floods electric fences had been erected to protect some breeding wader areas and there had been some increase in breeding success with redshanks having a particularly successful year. More recently funding has been secured for a permanent anti-predator fence so signs for the future are more hopeful.
I took an early June walk to Black Pond, normally one of the best dragonfly ponds I know at this time of year, but this had almost completely dried out due to the exceptionally dry and warm weather in April and May and few dragonflies were to be seen. As compensation though I noticed several juvenile grey wagtails round the pond and presumed that a pair of adults must have bred nearby.
I have seen grey wagtails investigate this pond before in Spring which has always puzzled me as they are more normally associated with running water or lake margins. Maybe the normal abundance of aquatic insects attracts them.
It will be interesting to see how the fact that Black Pond drying out much earlier in the summer affects the dragonfly population in 2021. Whether the larvae will have found a way of evading the grey wagtails and surviving the dry conditions remains to be seen. This pond normally holds a good population of emerald damselflies, and yet I failed to spot any this year. By contrast the pond at Redstart Corner miraculously kept its water and remained good for dragonflies throughout the summer and early autumn. It has also become a good place to look for water voles.
WeBS counts resumed in June and I found myself allocated to do the long walk on the West side of Amberley Wildbrooks. While the numbers of wetland birds were typically low there were 2 bird encounters of note. First, in a bushy area where the main track goes through the middle of the Wildbrooks there was some excellent nightingale song from at least 2 birds. Then, much more surprising, a few hundred yards further north on the same track there was the unmistakeable reeling song of a grasshopper warbler – an elusive species I had never encountered before. It was slightly distant but on repeating this route for WeBS in July I was treated to the same call at the same place on the track but this time much closer and rather loud. The bird stayed stubbornly out of sight in the long vegetation as they do, but it was one of the year’s most memorable moments.
On all my local lockdown walks I had noticed that there seemed to be more small tortoiseshell butterflies than usual, and I had wondered how they would be doing at the reserve. Now I was back I was pleased to find several.
The summer produced some very interesting butterfly highlights but first I will mention one low light which was the complete absence of painted ladies. After an abundant year for them in 2019 it seemed they had gone from boom to bust. However, there was no shortage of the closely related red admirals. Sometime in June while standing at the Hanger I noticed that there were several being attracted to the sawn-off branch of an oak behind the viewpoint, presumably feeding on sap from the tree.
I subsequently checked out this sawn-off branch every time I visited and for several weeks it was being used by red admirals and hornets. One afternoon in early July when I was at the Hanger and a surprisingly large fluttering presence intruded into my peripheral vision, I checked the branch to see if a butterfly had landed there. To my amazement and great delight there was a female purple emperor, the UKs second largest butterfly, only beaten in size by the swallowtail.
Only a few days earlier a purple emperor male in all his finery had been seen near the Visitor Centre. This species has only very occasionally been recorded here before and certainly not by me. The reserve does have some suitable habitat for them in the shape of tall trees for meeting and feeding and sallows for egg laying, so in theory they could become established here.
There was a greater abundance of marbled whites in late June and into July. Pulborough is never likely to be as good as my local downs for this butterfly but numbers do seem to have been increasing at the reserve in recent years. This is another species with an attractive underwing pattern
During late June and early July many thistles were in flower by the path between Redstart Corner and West Mead and these seemed covered by hundreds of small skippers and the almost identical Essex skippers.
This fact was noticed by several visitors who have referred to this since then as if it is unusual. It is certainly not unusual to see these species here, but they did seem to be much more abundant this year.
The ragwort in this area had, as expected, attracted the attention of cinnabar moths but some plants were far more smothered in stripey caterpillars than I can recall seeing before.
One day at the end of July I arrived at Jupps View and was confronted by a distant view of 5 cattle egrets with our Highland cattle. These are the latest and the smallest of the white egrets to colonise the UK, and this was a first sighting here for me. A fuller account can be found at this link Cattle Egrets at Pulborough Brooks - Pulborough Brooks - Pulborough Brooks - The RSPB Community
Throughout the year there have been reports of more unusual white herons including white stork from the Knepp project, great white egret and a spoonbill seen in July, another first for me here.
Late July and August saw the usual influx of migrating waders notably wood sandpipers, green sandpiper, common sandpiper and ruff. Also there were a surprising number of summer plumage black tailed godwits which I thought might be young non-breeding birds. One day in July I counted 80. Redstarts returned to Redstart Corner and the world seemed almost back to normal.
In September there were several clouded yellow butterflies to be found, perhaps best seen near the Zigzag Path. They are often restless and have eluded photography until this year.
By contrast I failed to find any late brood commas which is very unusual as in normal years you can often see these feeding on overripe blackberries. I wondered if this had something to do with the exceptionally dry spring but could not work out a connection. There was no shortage of the first brood commas during Lockdown 1 in my local area
In September and early October my favourite ivy bush next to the water trough at the back of Fattengates Courtyard came into flower right on cue. This year I managed to enthuse several visitors about the delights of watching the perpetual motion on this bush of hoverflies, hornets, red admirals and all manner of other flying insects. My personal favourite and perhaps the most numerous species on this bush however is the aptly named ivy bee, a relative newcomer to the UK.
The day of the September WeBS Count somehow seemed very strange. While the Visitor Centre shop and toilets had been open several weeks, it was still only on a 5 day a week basis from Wednesday to Sunday, So that Monday after completing the count everything seemed eerily quiet and on a warm sunny day somehow the reserve seemed bereft of people. There were already hints of a second Covid wave coming and I had this uncomfortable feeling that another lockdown might cut me off once again. So I vowed to make the most of every visit and had a long session at Redstart Corner pond trying to develop my technique for photographing dragonflies in flight. This photo of a southern hawker is the result.
Despite the uncomfortable news, some staff soon returned from furlough, the Visitor Centre resumed 7 days week opening. A takeaway version of the café opened with bacon baps back on the menu served from the courtyard hatch in time to supply my customary late breakfast after the October WeBS Count.
In early October the autumn rains came with a vengeance and one day I was pinned down in the Fattengates shelter over lunch for 90 minutes with the rain hammering down and a growing lake nearby. At least a robin was able to provide some entertainment by having a bath.
Throughout the summer I’d had occasional sightings of hobbies but one day in mid-October I predicted to a visitor who asked that they would now be all on the way to winter quarters in Africa. Within a few hours and after a tip off I was proved wrong by finding a juvenile hobby perched on a dead tree on the heathland. It has been suspected for some years that a pair of hobbies has nested in the nearby wood. More about hobbies can be found at this link Recent Sightings Friday 9th October – Autumn Hobbies - Pulborough Brooks - Pulborough Brooks - The RSPB Community
Later in October I came across the most extraordinary looking insect on a fence rail in Adder Alley
This is a female ichneumon wasp which comes equipped with its own metallic looking drill for boring into wood which then doubles up as an ovipositor for laying eggs inside the larva of other solitary bees and wasps. On hatching the ichneumon wasp larva proceeds to eat the host grub alive. This was all news to me and is one of those extraordinary wildlife adaptations that you could not make up.
As usual autumn fungi had been appearing mysteriously all over the reserve and the staff created the usual fungus self-guided trail in the woodland. Here are some of the better specimens I found, a fly agaric and staghorn fungus on a stump
November arrived with another lockdown and some staff re-furloughed but as a volunteer I was still allowed to attend. The café reduced its staff and the bacon baps disappeared only to be replaced by the best sausage rolls I have ever tasted, all handmade on the premises (thanks Ruth!).
In what seemed a rather muted year for dragonflies I was noting an apparent lack of common darters which normally fly late into autumn. However on a sunny afternoon I took lunch on the viewpoint at the top of the field behind the Hanger and was much cheered to find no less than 7 common darters in their usual pose basking on the woodwork in sunshine and restoring a little normality, This photo shows 3.
As the autumn wore on all the usual winter wildfowl species returned and sightings of raptors, especially marsh harriers and peregrines, increased prompting some squabbles over food
The South East had a large influx of Russian white fronted geese and a small number turned up at the reserve. I counted 2 on the North Brooks for the December WeBS. And one Friday in December a tundra bean goose was seen distantly also on the North Brooks, an even more scarce winter visitor from Siberia reminding me that 4 years ago we had a group of 5 which stayed for a few days.
A barn owl was seen again several times hunting near West Mead and somehow it seemed like the year had come full circle.
At the time of writing the Covid news is getting worse, several Tiers of restrictions are in force and Pulborough has been “promoted” to Tier 4 along with most of the South East of England. Our hides and shop are shut again. For now, I am still allowed to volunteer, and I am still trying to make most of my time at the reserve. A Covid vaccine is being rolled out, a Brexit deal has been done, but there is still much uncertainty about the year ahead. espite this Pulborough Brooks carries on being a haven for some wonderful wildlife as it has done throughout the year.
In these difficult times the 2020 BBC Springwatch and Autumnwatch series were promoting the benefits of mindful moments where you just quietly observe nature for a few minutes and shut out all other thoughts. I am a great believer in this concept. One of my favourite ways of doing this is to look out over the South Brooks on a fine late afternoon in winter where you can watch the sun set behind the Downs and the evening sky develop its beautiful colour.
Pulborough Brooks has remained a special place to spend time away from all the worries of this strangest of years and it will still be there for us providing many familiar sights and some new ones when life settles down to a new normal.
Phil Thornton
Hide and Trails volunteer (mostly without hides now)
PS Thanks are due to Chris Juliet, Warren and Alan for their help in finding many of the birds mentioned in this account and being a constant source of socially distanced good cheer on the trails. Also to Christine and Matt from Pulborough village for useful local intelligence during Lockdown 1.