One of our Pulborough Brooks nightingales - photo from Mike Beck.
Our most celebrated songsters, the nightingales, have arrived! Today, one was singing beautifully at the top of the zig zag path today, and 'adder alley' is once again proving to be a popular spot.
One of our most eagerly anticipated arrivals each spring, this wonderful bird makes the journey from Africa, south of the Sahara, to Pulborough Brooks for just a few months of the year. As soon as he arrives, the male starts to sing to woo a female and intimidate any male rivals and the hedgerows come alive with their incredible song.
Sadly, fewer and fewer people hear nightingales each year. In the 2015 report ‘Birds of Conservation Concern 4’ (BoCC) nightingales were added to the Red list. They showed a decline in the breeding population of 60% over the past 25 years (and a staggering 85% since the first BoCC review started in 1969) and also in the breeding range, with a 43% drop in the number of occupied 10km squares over the past 40 years. They share this fate with many of the migratory birds who come to the UK to breed.
We’re only just beginning to understand the incredible journey a nightingale makes each year, and the dangers they face on the way. Saving nightingales will mean tackling the dangers they face on their travels, protecting their winter feeding grounds, and creating and safeguarding their breeding habitat here.
Giving nightingales a home at Pulborough Brooks
When the RSPB came to Pulborough Brooks in 1989 you would have been very unlikely to have heard a nightingale here. 25 years on and we now support between 7 and 10 territories.
We’ve created and now manage the habitat with nightingales in mind - all of the ‘scruffy’ bits, dense patches of bramble, blackthorn thickets, are actually very carefully cultivated!
Scrub and woodland habitat needs to be managed on a regular basis as they change rapidly. As the trees get older they start to shade out the plants underneath them, leaving the ground layer too open for some of our scrub-nesting birds such as the nightingales. The sallows in particular get very ‘leggy’ and start blocking out the light without providing the dense cover that our nesting birds need. The work we do involves pollarding some of the trees and layering and hedge-laying other shrubs and trees. This helps to produce the habitat that is required by nightingales and other scrub warblers – young trees with perches to sing from with plenty of dense cover underneath to nest in and in which to forage for food.
Join us for our annual nightingale festival
Over the May bank holiday weekend (Saturday 30 April - Monday 02 May), we'll be showcasing our fabulous nightingales. Help will be on hand throughout the weekend with friendly guides in the visitor centre and out on the nature trail in our nightingale hot spots. Drop in at anytime between 10 am and 4 pm (they sing beautifully during the daytime as well as during the night) and experience this wonder of nature.
At the visitor centre we'll also be holding one of our binocular and telescope weekends; a chance to ask for advice and try out some of our great range of wildlife watching equipment. We'll also be joined by local photographer Howard Kearley who will be displaying some of his fantastic wildlife photographs, some of which, like this lovely barn owl, have been taken here at Pulborough Brooks
If you would like to experience the reserve 'after dark' on one of our night-time safaris, we have added an extra event date to coincide with our nightingale festival on Saturday 30 April (7.15 - 9.30 pm). You do need to book for this event - contact the visitor centre on 01798 875851. Full details of this evening event are listed under 'Night -time safari - a watch of nightingales'.