Thanks to volunteer Phil for the report and photos from Friday.
Even on days when the more interesting wildlife fails to appear the beautiful peaceful landscape at Pulborough Brooks is guaranteed. To emphasise this point on arrival at Nettley’s hide with the early morning rain gradually clearing I was greeted by a weak but perfectly arched rainbow over the North Brooks.
But on this day there was no shortage of bird interest. The black-tailed godwit numbers are starting to creep up – 19 this week up from 3 on my previous visit - and hopefully will accelerate. There may well have been more as another possible group was observed just when the arrival of a marsh harrier caused pandemonium. Seemingly every bird on the North Brooks took to the air at once and the whole sky was filled with a noisy swirling mass of Canada geese, greylags, lapwings, teal, wigeon, mallard, pintail, starlings and snipe in addition to the godwits.
The harrier stayed for several hours giving excellent views but far from causing constant mayhem soon things became much calmer, perhaps because the other birds realised that this was a juvenile that hadn’t fully learned its trade. This was given away by the distinctive cream coloured head and a rather clumsy attempt at hovering rather like a kestrel but just a few feet about the ground. It clearly had not mastered the art of drifting slowly over the ground looking for prey that marks out the adult birds. Occasionally the harrier flew up only to be mobbed by crows and rooks rather like they were acting as policemen for the assembled bird community.
When all the birds went up it became clear that there were good numbers of snipe around, and after settling down again several of them came quite close into Nettley’s Hide allowing a game of “Spot the Snipe”. These birds blend in with the background so well that it is possible to look straight at one without actually seeing it. This happened with the one pair of visitors who looked straight at a snipe through my scope but declared that they couldn’t see it. Eventually I resorted to taking a photo and showing it magnified on my camera screen to illustrate what they should look for in terms of its surroundings.
Happily this otherwise unremarkable photo did its job and 2 happy visitors were able to pick out the bird in the scope and marvel at its camouflage markings.
I also found flocks of linnets on the North Brooks and greenfinches near the public footpath going between Fattengates and Wiggonholt Church. Elsewhere on the reserve thrushes of all types have been showing well recently and there have been several reports of goldcrests, all signs of the advancing season.
At the end of the day the landscape theme returned as the cloud cover started to clear in the west revealing a most beautiful evening sky.
Observing the setting sun and evening sky in the autumn and winter on clear evenings from the Visitor Centre, Winpenny and West Mead Hides is well worth a visit in its own right.
P.S. A request from Anna...despite the regular sightings of marsh harrier at Pulborough Brooks over the past few weeks we've not yet managed to get a photograph. So if any keen photographer would like a challenge, we'd love to add a marsh harrier picture to our collection! If you have any photos that you have taken at Pulborough Brooks that you would be happy for us to use on our blogs and for displays please email them to anna.allum@rspb.org.uk. Thank you!