Recent sightings 6/10/17 - thank you to volunteer Phil for his report and photos this week.
On Friday at Hanger my sharp-eyed colleague John pointed out a circling peregrine as the cause of pandemonium amongst a group of lapwings on the North Brooks. Readers familiar with Pulborough Brooks will recognise this as a classic sight of the autumn and winter months and we can look forward to seeing this more often as the season progresses.
Lapwing numbers have been increasing to more than 200 as birds start to arrive for the winter, most likely from Europe. Easily picked out amongst the lapwing on Friday were several ruff, one distinctly larger which may have been a male, these being about a third bigger than the females. Up to 20 ruff have been seen on the reserve in the last 2 weeks. This photo shows two of them feeding on the North Brooks amongst a group of lapwings.
A solitary dunlin could be found on Friday but there was no sign of the pectoral sandpipers or little stint seen recently. My little stint sighting from the previous week was a first for me at the reserve. These tiny sparrow size waders are noticeably smaller than dunlin, in itself a small wader species, and the difference in size is surprising if you seem them together as I had done. Little stints breed in the Arctic areas of Europe, migrating to Africa for the winter and can be seen in the UK in the autumn passage. The RSPB website entry suggests that around 460 of them might be seen in the country in the autumn.
A few black-tailed godwits had been seen earlier in the week but none were present on Friday. I’ve so far being unable to find reports of large numbers on the South Coast so it seems we are yet to see a big influx of birds from Iceland.
Greylag numbers seem to have shot up in the last week. These large geese are a little more demure then their raucous cousins the Canada geese but present quite a spectacle in large numbers. I didn’t try counting them but my guess is that there were more than 400 on the North Brooks on Friday. This shot shows several coming in to land after being disturbed.
As well as the peregrine several other raptors were present on Friday, including marsh harrier, red kite, buzzard, sparrowhawk. Kestrels could be seen all over the reserve. This one perched prominently on the heathland.
And here is one hovering over the South Brooks showing its beautifully fanned tail feathers.
A pair of ravens were over the South Brooks in the morning, one being mobbed by a flock of jackdaws when the size difference between the 2 corvid species was striking.
In many places the paths around the main trail were almost completely covered in acorns of which there seems to be a bumper crop this year, suiting the jays, several of which could be seen. Each bird will typically store a few thousand acorns to keep it going through the winter months.
We are still seeing some hirundines passing through. Last week it was the turn of sand martins and swallows. This week house martins could be picked out more easily on the South Brooks showing their prominent white rump in flight.
October is typically a month when we celebrate the fungi on the reserve. This year however many have been coming out early presumably due to the rather cool wet August so for example these huge parasol mushrooms were seen by the old between West Mead and Redstart Corner in mid-August but have long gone.
In a similar position last week was a bright orange mushroom which I’ve been unable to identify.
In shape and colour it is rather like that classic toadstool, the red topped fly agaric, but lacking the white spots.
I was surprised by how few prominent clumps of fungus could be seen by the woodland paths and the presence of some notices in various places suggested that many of these had already gone. This photo of a splendid clump of fungi on Black Wood was taken in early September.
Nevertheless on Friday another prominent clump on an old stump by one of the heathland ponds added nicely to the scene, so there are still fungi to be found.
There are still a number of dragonflies around although we are not treated to any hobby sightings on Friday making me wonder if they have set off for winter quarters in Africa. Sunny days in October are a good time to see common darters sunbathing on seats as in this photo of a female which has developed some of the male red colouration.
Compare this with another female sunbathing on a wall in Fattengates courtyard which has developed a rather unattractive brown mud sort of colour suggesting this is a much older insect.
Visiting my favourite ivy bush in Fattengates on Friday I noticed that many of the flowers were setting into fruit and not too surprisingly there were not the same numbers of hornets, ivy bees and hoverflies but still some could be seen with a little searching. Less difficult to find was a brightly coloured comma butterfly.
Finally, I must mention that on the whiteboard in West Mead hide a fieldfare had been recorded one day last week heralding the beginning of the return of our beautiful winter thrushes.