Recent Sightings Friday 4th November – Thanks to volunteer Phil for his report and sightings
After a fine start to the day, the Indian summer and very dry weather seemed to come to an abrupt end around 11.30 am on Friday. By this time I’d arrived at the Hanger to survey the army of geese out on the North Brooks but it then started spotting with rain. Half an hour later in gathering gloom the rain set in and I beat a hasty path to Nettley’s Hide to take shelter.
Here several conversations with visitors discussed the very dry weather since June and the complete lack of water at West Mead. With the rain drumming on the roof of the hide I started daydreaming about water gushing out of the pipe at Pipe Pond and flowing down the stream to fill up the pool. Unfortunately it will take quite a lot more rain for this to happen. The pool at West Mead, often one of our best for attracting wildfowl and waders in winter, is also the one where there is no other way of controlling the water levels apart from waiting for rainwater from the stream to fill it up.
The mud coloured pool basin actually proved to be of some interest to about 30 lapwing, demonstrating that some birds might be happy enough with the conditions as they are. On my previous visit scanning the same dry basin with binoculars had revealed that it was actually alive with many linnets just blending into the background.
Elsewhere there is still less water than would be normal at this time of year, but there has been a modest increase on the North Brooks and now some pools are starting to appear on the grass in front of Winpenny Hide.. Most of the several hundred wigeon on the reserve had congregated here. Here also a marsh harrier was showing well in the morning with lapwings and teal in good numbers best seen on the South Brooks from Hail’s View.
A pale fronted buzzard was to be seen on a fence post from West Mead and Winpenny as is often the case just now. There are at least 2 of these birds in the area and the recent sightings sheet at the visitor centre from a few weeks ago suggested that someone had actually mistaken one of them for an osprey. You can gain some impression as to why from this not very good photo through my scope and it does illustrate that buzzards have considerable variation in their plumage. Ospreys do use the Arun Valley as a flyway during migration and we do occasionally see them overhead but it would be extremely unusual to see one perched like this.
On the North Brooks large numbers of Canada geese and greylags were joined by at least 5 white fronted geese seen from Nettley’s Hide along with the bar headed goose escapee. Mixed in with the ubiquitous teal were a few shoveler and pintails, and another large flock of lapwing was present. A snipe could be found with some difficulty and there were tantalising glimpses of other waders, which might have been dunlin and common sandpiper, but the viewing conditions were not good enough for a positive identification. A kestrel was spotted, but in the rain it didn’t afford the excellent view from the previous week, seen here hovering giving a good view of the patterning on its feathers.
My previous visit had afforded splendid views of a peregrine in the usual willow tree.
This week it was conspicuous by its absence, although an adult peregrine was seen over the South Brooks in the morning.
It seemed to be a particularly good day for great spotted woodpeckers in various parts of the reserve. In particular they seem to have a liking for a prominent dead tree on the heathland where I found a pair chasing each other. To find the tree just look straight out from the public footpath over Black Pond – currently dried up, This tree is also commonly used in autumn and winter by redwings, fieldfares, mistle and song thrushes. Several small parties of fieldfares and redwings were to be found around the reserve, most notably on the heathland and behind Winpenny.
At the Hanger a small party of bullfinches was feeding in the line of bushes in front of the viewpoint and I noted that I’d seen some there the previous week. These birds tend to be hard to find during the summer but with the leaves now falling rapidly they are becoming easier to spot.
Finally, now that clocks have gone back an hour, I have to mention the wonderful sunsets and evening skies that we will now be able to see on clear days over the reserve from about 4.15 onwards, and gradually getting earlier as the season progresses. On Friday I thought it would too wet, but as I was buying seed in the shop around 4.45 I noticed that the sky was starting to clear and show some colour in the west. I didn’t have a camera to hand, but here is a more spectacular view from outside the Visitor Centre taken around the same time last year.
Note that the foreground shows West Mead pool full of water, an interesting comparison with its currently dry state, so more rain is needed!