Recent Sightings 5th and 7th October – Winds of Change - Thanks to volunteer Phil for his report and photos
Driving to Pulborough down the M23 on Wednesday to help with a guided fungi walk I couldn’t help noticing the planes taking off from Gatwick across the motorway as this is not the usual direction. It told of an easterly wind and emerging from the car there was indeed a strong easterly detectable in the car park. Since then there have been strong winds from this general direction.
Neverthless there was some shelter in the woods on the walk. The dry weather may have affected the growth of fungi, normally plentiful at this time of year. However in a 2 ½ hour walk with a little searching we still managed to find well over 30 species. Perhaps the most colourful was the amethyst deceiver, so called because it changes colour over a period of time as suggested by these two specimens.
Perhaps the strangest was this specimen where worm like tubes seem to be growing from a broken off twig.
The most impressive was a large bracket fungus at the bottom of a tree. (Birch polypore)
Returning on Friday with the wind still in the East I set out by the heathland more in birdwatching mode and it became apparent that the that wind direction change might have been very significant. I noticed that there were several thrushes particularly attracted to a prominent dead tree. These included both song and mistle thrush and a solitary fieldfare. A short while later some of our regular Friday visitors reported seeing redwings nearby, thereby providing a full set of winter thrushes. Fieldfares and redwings in particular breed in Northern Europe but usually visit Pulborough in overwintering flocks. It was good to see the first arrivals, perhaps a little earlier than expected, and most likely helped on their way across the North Sea by the easterly wind.
Another winter visitor from Northern Europe is the brambling, occasionally seen here, which is similar to a chaffinch but with more of an orange colour. Visitors had also reported seeing these by The Clump – the prominent hill with the pines overlooking the heathland - and a few minutes later I was able to confirm this sighting, a personal first on the reserve. The birds were just too far away for an effective photograph so I include one here taken at West Dean Woods near Chichester in January.
In the office I’d been told about the Thursday sightings of more autumn migrants, ring ouzels near Redstart Corner and a yellow browed warbler seen by the Zigzag Path. By Friday the ring ouzels seemed to have moved on. I am familiar with these birds in their summer mountain home in the Scottish Highlands, but they do crop up regularly in Sussex on their migration route at this time of year. More often they are reported from the tops of the South Downs.
My Birds of Sussex book tells me that the yellow browed warbler is rather like a willow warbler but with a prominent pale wing bar. It is principally an Asian bird with a relatively small European population but very slowly increasing numbers have been spotted over the last 50 years in Sussex, particularly during the autumn migration. I failed to find the bird but one of our visitors did spot it on the Zigzag Path in the morning and a colleague reported seeing one at Cissbury Ring just a few miles away in the morning.
Here's a photo of the yellow browed warbler taken by another of our volunteers, Graham. on Sunday (09 Oct)
At Hail’s View I was pleased to see some water on the South Brooks which was being enjoyed by about 200 wigeon, 70 lapwings and 150 greylags. I also spotted a very large flock of Canada geese (c 400 birds) in a ploughed field beyond the riverbank and a couple of hours later from West Mead it seemed that these birds had made the short hop over the Arun to the South Brooks.
There are still plenty of hirundines about and a large group of house martins could be seen from Hails View whizzing over the South Brooks, reminding me that earlier in the week I’d seen a delightful flock around a bush just a few miles away near Chanctonbury Ring. As they were perching and constantly twittering I had wondered whether they were in the process of deciding it was time to leave the country
During the morning I noticed that jays seemed much more prominent than in recent months.
These birds store acorns to survive the winter and I noted that one bird in particular near West Mead appeared to be hiding nuts.
A flock of about 20 meadow pipits was seen nearby.
At Winpenny two snipe flew into the grass just beyond the pool but still brilliantly managed to hide themselves in a dip. It seems there may be lots of snipe on the reserve just now. As part of a comprehensive exercise in improving the state of the ditches across Pulborough and Amberley Wildbrooks I undertook a survey 3 weeks ago to establish the current state of the SW corner of the North Brooks. During the course of an hour I disturbed at least 10 snipe from the rushes. Extrapolating using this number from the relatively small area of my survey across the whole of the North and South Brooks I could speculate that we have over 100 birds on the reserve just now. However as snipe are so hard to spot normally and our monthly Wetland Bird Survey doesn’t have time for a route that follows all the ditches it will never be possible to confirm such a number.
On the North Brooks there were plenty of teal but the highlight was 3 kestrels (2 males and a female) hunting very actively and alternately seen hovering and perching on the fence posts. I couldn’t better Gary’s photos from last week.
It’s clear that Autumn is now in full swing but despite that there has been very little rain since June. It appears that our wardens have been moving water round the reserve to try to provide better conditions for the wintering wildfowl and waders. This can be done by using sluices to extract water from the river, tilting weirs to either stem or encourage the flow of water in some of the ditches and a pump to extract water from the main ditch that winds through the reserve. The result of this work is that we now have some useful water in both the North and South Brooks and in the pool in front of Winpenny Hide. Unfortunately West Mead pool, currently completely dry and starting to green up, is too far from the water management facilities to benefit and will have to wait for some substantial rain to fill it up from the stream that runs down through Pipe Pond. The water in the pond is quite low but I was pleased to see a grey wagtail on the muddy margins. This had also been spotted last Friday and presumably several times during the last week.
Curiously I was a little disappointed to see the extra water at Winpenny as this appeared to have driven away a green sandpiper that has been seen a lot there in late summer and early autumn enjoying the mud. Last week I had superb views of it very close to the hide.
However late in the afternoon I met another regular Friday visitor who assured me that he’d seen a green sandpiper fly in to Winpenny, so maybe it can tolerate the higher water level.
At the end of a very interesting day I was able to sit out outside the café with tea and cake and enjoy the large goldfinch flock alternately dancing over the thistles in Upperton’s Field and lining up on the fence.