Thanks to volunteer John for his report from a busy weekend at the reserve.
After the Winterwatch mention of the white-tailed eagles at Pulborough Brooks an emergency appeal was issued asking for we volunteers to help out at the weekend in anticipation of an increase in visitors. News of the (fairly) regular visits from the eagles was already having a beneficial effect on visitor numbers and the publicity certainly added to that increase.
By 10 am the car park was filling despite the -2 degree temperature. I spent the first half hour alone on the tea terrace scanning the south brooks and beyond for the eagles. I had been told on arrival that they had been seen from West Mead but there was no sign of them and no-one to share them with anyway so I adjourned to the pond viewpoint collecting a welcome hot chocolate on the way. There I met Martin, a regular Sunday volunteer who was armed with a radio. On the ice we picked out a huddle of pintail, a bunch of lapwing and a couple of scavenging crows. A snipe posed outside West Mead and a kestrel balanced on a bush between forays over Upperton's field which was gradually turning green as the sun grew stronger. Unfortunately for the kestrel, each time it went hunting a crow took umbrage and provided an impressive aerial dogfight.
Kestrel by Chris Prince
During the morning a song thrush made a brief appearance as did a fieldfare. A great-spotted woodpecker bounced over followed later by a nuthatch. Two green woodpeckers yaffled at each other from a distance and the resident house sparrows squabbled.
After about half an hour of unsuccessful scanning for predators, and disappointing the new arrivals, the radio crackled into life with the news that both eagles were visible, one on the riverbank and the other on a treetop. Our scopes swung into action and soon we found one of the birds on the bank well to the south-west but just about near enough to show off. Before we could flaunt our find it flew off out of sight.
We were made of stern stuff though and we soon found the other eagle atop a distant dead tree. When I say distant I mean about half a mile away ( almost a full Underwood). A light mist was approaching from the west which added to the problem of showing off the bird to the increasing number of visitors. Binoculars were hardly adequate to see the top of the tree let alone the brown blob on top of it so our scopes got a lot of use. After a few minutes someone who was glued to a scope announced that the bird had flown. For a while we greeted newcomers with the time-honoured phrase " You should have been here a few minutes ago". Cold comfort indeed.
White-tailed eagles by Phil Thornton
Being optimistic we left our scopes trained on the tree and after twenty minutes or so we were rewarded with the sight of the same brown blob back on the top. By this time there was a steady flow of newcomers and we soon had queues lined up to see the bird through the scopes. It was good to hear the " Wow" s and other satisfied comments, especially from the lady who had driven from Essex in the hope of seeing the eagles.
By 12.30 it had flapped off south, but while it had sat on that distant tree some thirty people had seen it and many others had seen it from West Mead and Winpenny.
To really make my day a pair of stonechat posed in the field and two ladies saw them in the scope announcing that they had never seen stonechat before and didn't even know they existed.
Stonechat by Graham Osborne
It was good to meet so many people of all ages enjoying the winter sunshine and appreciating our great reserve.