After much rain and sleet in recent weeks the Brooks are currently looking very wet and the flood pools seem to be growing almost daily. This was very evident when I returned on a wet Monday for the monthly Wetland Bird Survey (WeBS) after missing the previous week and couldn’t help noticing the difference.
All the while the count was underway there was a biting northerly wind blowing very cold rain at us causing droplets on the objective lens of my scope while the eyepiece was so cold it was constantly misting up. In the terrible visibility I counted 41 black tailed godwits on the North Brooks – a little down on some recent numbers which had been around the 60-70 mark but there could easily have been many more birds around that we couldn’t see.
Returning on Friday in better weather there was even more flood water evident and the following photograph of the South Brooks from the top of Green Lane gives an idea of the extent.
There was a much larger group of black tailed godwits and one of our visitors told me that he had counted 175 on the North Brooks , more than 4 times as many as we recorded on Monday 11th. I suspect this figure may have been more than our peak count last winter when the autumn had been much drier.
I’m hopeful that this might be a good sign for black tailed godwits in the New Year. In January 2016 I returned from a very wet Christmas period to a scene at Winpenny Hide that resembled a lake on the South Brooks. While the flood water hasn’t reached this extent yet, if there is much more rain it wouldn’t be too surprising if we saw it at these levels, a prospect I find rather exciting. In January 2016 we had a record number of black tailed godwits on the reserve estimated to be around 1200 and providing a real spectacle. Here’s a photograph from that period.
I am no expert on this subject but based on observations in recent winters my hypothesis is that black tailed godwits favour the very wet conditions both in the water and on the grassy areas where the soft ground might allow for better use of their long bills. But it is only a hypothesis and I may be proved completely wrong.
While black tailed godwits are relatively large waders, at the opposite end of the scale, stints are tiny ones not much bigger than a sparrow. Throughout the autumn we have had several sightings of little stint but within the last week a Temminck’s stint has been seen several times. With visibility so poor it didn’t appear on our WeBS Count but it was seen on Friday from West Mead, 100 yards or so beyond the pool consorting with a flock of linnets.
Little stints are passage migrants seen in spring or autumn moving between their breeding grounds in the Arctic areas of Europe and winter quarters in Africa. Around 700 birds may be seen in the UK during the autumn migration, but a handful of birds overwinter in the country and could be that a bird seen in recent weeks may be one of these. Temminck’s stints, named after a 18th – 19th century Dutch naturalist Coenraad Jacob Temminck, are much scarcer passage migrants in the UK between Arctic Europe and Africa. Only about 100 birds are seen each year and they are not known to overwinter in the country. Seeing one in mid-December is therefore highly unusual. Most records for the autumn migration cease by the end of October.
Differentiating between these species at a distance is far from easy and there is a theory that a little stint reported in recent weeks may have been misidentified and is the same bird that we now know to be a Temminck’s stint. The little stint’s legs are black while the Temminck’s stint has shorter yellow legs. In the autumn little stints, usually juveniles, show 2 white stripes going down the back whereas the greyer Temminck’s stint lacks these stripes.
Temminck's Stint (photo courtesy of www.birdguides.com)
Little Stint (photo courtesy of www.gobirding.eu)
The water in the pool in front of Nettley’s Hide is noticeably deeper and perhaps as a result the snipe that like to hang out there appeared to be spending more time openly feeding on the wet grass and mud even closer to the hide.
The extra water also appears to be attracting more pintails, their longer necks making it easier to up-end for food in deeper water. I would guess that there were more than 100 present on Friday.
The hen harrier seen in recent weeks is still being reported on some days along with marsh harrier, peregrine and the usual buzzard and kestrel.
Bullfinches seemed to be all around the main trail in the wet and cold on Monday but by sheer chance I never saw one on the much sunnier Friday. Winter is usually the best time to see these colourful birds on the reserve.
Finally, I must mention the hawfinch, our largest finch, a little smaller than a thrush but with an enormous chunky bill for its size. This bill is likened to a pair of nutcrackers in one of my books and can break into some very hard fruit stones. Hawfinches tend to prefer to stay in the tops of trees making them more difficult to find.
Hawfinch (photo courtesy of Andy Hay/RSPB Images)
There is a small UK breeding population of hawfinch (500-1000 pairs), but in winter some birds migrate from the continent where they are more common, pushing the population up to between 10,000 and 15,000 birds. Since October many more hawfinches than usual appear to have come into the UK, with sizeable flocks reported in some places including Rewell Wood just a few miles SW towards Arundel. At Pulborough Brooks, where hawfinches are only rarely seen, we have had several sightings in recent weeks of just a few birds, notably around Fattengates Courtyard, the Zigzag Path and The Hanger. It is not clear what has caused this influx, but it has never been a better time to look for this elusive species.