Thanks to volunteer Phil for his report and photos
Recent Sightings Friday 16th November
Arriving at the Hanger in mid-morning a regular visitor reported seeing what he thought was a red breaster merganser from Jupps View earlier. Being very surprised by this, as I usually think of this species as coastal, I quizzed him and discovered that it was of the female type colouring, light grey with a light red -brown and somewhat tufted head. I asked if it could have been a female goosander which has very similar colouring and he replied that it seemed too small.
A few minutes later this bird could be seen in our scopes in the middle of the main pool on the North Brooks where it helpfully swam in front of a group of mallards plainly giving away its slightly smaller size. There could be no doubt indeed that this was a red breasted merganser. Discussing this later in the office I discovered that there has been no previous record of this species at Pulborough Brooks.
Later I realised that I should have considered the possibility that it was an eclipse male or a juvenile bird which both display similar colour to the adult female. In the very poor light that persisted all day, and with the bird being quite distant, I had only been able to take a very poor digiscoped photo with my phone camera. However this was good enough to show no well defined white visible on its flanks ruling out an eclipse male and suggesting that it might be an immature bird looking rather like the rear bird in this photo taken in a sheltered bay in Orkney a few summers ago.
The red breasted merganser is neither abundant nor very scarce in the UK, but it is a much more coastal species than the similar and larger goosander which is normally only found inland on rivers and lakes. Some red breasted mergansers do breed in the North of the UK as well the Arctic areas of Northern Europe. They often breed by sheltered coastal waters but can sometimes be found breeding on inland waters. In winter in the UK they are usually seen in coastal bays, and in my experience, often in pairs like the birds in the photo in a very typical place in Langstone Harbour recently.
Some discussion took place about why this bird was seen here and I suggested it had just decided to take a rest while on its way to the coast. Another idea advanced was that some birds don’t like migrating when the visibility is so poor, and this neatly complements my resting theory. We will never know for sure but it certainly provided a lot of interest on the day and proves once again that birds do not always behave exactly as per the text books.
The reserve has been transformed by the recent heavy rain and now there are flood pools to be seen all over the Brooks. West Mead in particular looks spectacularly different, with the whole area now under water in comparison with the mere puddles of the previous week.
The whole effect has been to bring in more wader species than we have seen through much of the dry autumn. On Friday curlew, grey plover, golden plover and dunlin were all seen. There are many more black tailed godwits with numbers now approaching 200 as opposed to just 3 on 9th November and an official WeBS Count figure of 86 on the North Brooks on 12th.
Short eared owl and barn owl sightings have continued with views of the former on Friday near Winpenny at various times during the day, along with a marsh harrier in the morning. On other recent days peregrines have been reported on the South Brooks. On Friday one of our regular visitors also located a merlin apparently disturbing a large group of lapwings but more likely chasing a distant flock of small birds in the air at the same time, maybe linnets or meadow pipits.
With all our usual wintering duck species present in good or even large numbers, it seems like the winter season is now in full swing just in time for our Wild Winter weekend on 24th and 25th November.