Recent Sightings Friday 9th June - thanks to volunteer Phil for his report and photos.
Our nightingales have given every indication that they have settled down to the serious business of rearing young. Fattengates Couryard has been our most reliable nightingale hotspot this year, and while there in the morning I had several glimpses of them flitting between bushes and looking very much like they were in the process of finding food and taking it back to a nest. Occasionally a croaky frog like contact call could be heard but the serious territorial singing phase seems to be over. One of the birds perched obligingly on the public footpath sign beyond the gate.
The wild wet and windy weather of earlier in the week will not have been welcome for many of our nesting birds, but maybe the nightingales with their love of dense scrub and bushes will have been naturally more sheltered and less affected. Fattengates Courtyard is one of the most sheltered spots on the reserve and a family of fledgling wrens was also taking advantage.
In the open the wind remained quite strong for most of the day but the morning showers eventually gave way to increasingly longer sunny spells. I was lucky enough to walk down the path towards Nettley’s Hide in warm sunshine and couldn’t help noticing that the bank to the right of the path was alive with dancing meadow browns. These brown and orange butterflies are a common sight in Summer and it seems that they have emerged in force during the last week. They tend to perch with wings folded as in this photo.
However they do sometime perch with wings open particularly when warming up in the morning as in this photo of one on ragwort from last year.
I noticed on my way down the Zigzag Path that the ragwort and fleabane plants that provide a brilliant nectar source for butterflies later in the summer are starting to grow but are still some weeks away from flowering.
Another butterfly now starting to emerge is the large skipper which belies its name, being rather small. It is somewhat unusual in the way that it holds its wings swept back when perched, so the hindwing is always covered by the forewing.To use a description used by one of our visitors it looks rather like an orange coloured Concorde shape.
With the sun out much more in the afternoon, there was plenty of dragonfly activity and there were several broad bodied chasers around the main trail. I have photographed these spectacular insects many times before, but I couldn’t resist taking another shot of this splendid female in Adder Alley.
A male was nearby and I wondered if they had mated or were investigating each other.
If you look carefully you will see that both the right wings have chunks missing and this serves as a reminder that while dragonflies are top predators in the insect world they are just another food source for birds and their hungry chicks.
At the end of the afternoon in West Mead hide I caught up with a family group of Egyptian Geese on the far side of the pond, consisting of 2 adults and 5 goslings.
I have seen Egyptian geese here before but never been aware of them breeding on the site. I think it is possible we may have had more than one pair breeding as we have had sightings of other adult birds on both South and North Brooks.
Elsewhere on the reserve a family party of shelducks with 8 ducklings were on the North Brooks. Our wardens reported 2 woodlarks on The Triangle and a little owl, seen again by the tractor shed, near the public footpath that goes North towards Pulborough from Wiggonholt Church.