Thanks to volunteer Phil for his report and photos and to volunteer John for his photos and contributions
Recent Sightings Friday 27th January – Winter visitors from Siberia
The day started well with a little owl perching at the bottom of Upperton's field and viewed by many visitors from the warmth and comfort of the Visitor Centre using the display scopes in the shop, or outside by the pond. Closer views were had from the gate opposite Fattengates Courtyard where the owl stayed for about two hours including feeding on a large mouse captured after a short hop from the post into the undergrowth. My colleague John provided the attached photo.
This bird has been seen several times throughout the autumn and appears to have a liking for the hedge lines along the fields where it can perch on fenceposts or low branches close to cover.
Just before leaving the Visitor Centre pond for the walk down to Hail’s View a weasel rushed along the edge of the pond and across the grass towards the gate onto the main path. A few seconds later it paused briefly to look at the little owl watchers and then scurried into the undergrowth. All my similar sightings here in the past have been of stoats, usually distinguished by a prominent black tip o the tail and slightly larger size, so this was a welcome first. A similar species, polecat, has been observed on night-time infrared photos from camera traps around the reserve.
During this autumn and winter we have had a number of sightings of large wetland birds visiting from Siberia. Throughout November and December we had several sightings of white fronted geese at Pulborough and nearby Amberley Wildbrooks, present in groups of up to 17 birds. These geese breed on the treeless Arctic tundra and migrate southwest, some reaching southern Britain where they spread out round the east and south coasts and to the Severn estuary. Another population breeds in Greenland and migrates largely to Ireland and SW Scotland. The Siberian population reaching Britain is estimated to be around 2400 birds.
More recently we have had sightings of Bewick swans which also migrate from north-west Siberia. More than 20 are known to be wintering in the Arun Valley and some have roosted at Pulborough or occasionally cropped up in the daytime as mentioned in my last post.
Friday marked the return of another Siberian species that was seen briefly in the autumn. By 10.45 I had reached Hail’s View where 6 geese could be seen flying in from the south. My colleague Clive picking them up in his scope declared them to be white fronted geese. After circling a few times the birds joined a large flock of Canada geese on the South Brooks where we had a better view. It then became clear that we had an interesting bird identification problem on our hands.
One of the birds was very clearly a white fronted goose but the other 5 birds showed no tell-tale white at the base of the bill. The geese were all clearly smaller than the rather similar greylags we commonly see, and had darker heads. Pink footed geese, which migrate from Greenland, Iceland and Spitsbergen, seemed a possibility. However these birds do not normally do not come so far south in the UK, have shorter bills than the geese in view and true to their name have pink rather than the orange legs we could see.
Therefore by elimination a type of bean goose was indicated. We noticed a very clear dark tip to the bill adjacent to a short orange band and this along with the smaller size indicated a tundra bean goose as opposed to the taiga variety. The latter, closer to the size of greylags and with more orange on the bill, breed in the vast coniferous forested area of Northern Scandinavia, Finland and Russia. It is estimated that only 410 birds from the taiga and 320 from the tundra populations winter in Britain, so it seems we were privileged to see these birds.
I took a rather distant photo of these geese seen in front of the noticeably larger Canada geese before they moved in the direction of West Mead.
Arriving there later, from a slightly nearer vantage point I took another shot showing the group now separated from the Canada geese.
After the extremely cold weather of the last week a thaw was setting in but most of the water was still frozen. However a small group of teal landing briefly on West Mead pool by splashing as well as sliding that that there was now a thin layer of water on top of the ice. Snipe were still out in the open grass.
At Redstart Corner many fieldfares were living up to their names by feeding in the adjacent fields.
Joining some colleagues at the Hanger I was immediately struck by the magnificent sight of a huge flock of wigeon flying in fast from the direction of the river. We guessed that there must have been somewhere in the region of 2000 birds.
Following this flock at great speed was a peregrine intent on a meal. We saw it catch up with the last wigeon injuring it sufficiently that it dropped, when it gradually became clear that it had landed in open water and the peregrine did not dare to fly low to pick it up. The peregrine landed nearby, tried to work out a way of safely scooping it up, but eventually had to give up and moved away to a nearby fencepost. Later it circled around the main flock which was very densely packed.
However the wigeon refused to leave the safety of the open water and the peregrine was forced to go hungry. A little later they discovered another open patch of water to the right and, as if to alleviate the overcrowding, started to form a procession across a patch of ice to reach it.
There were a number of other notable sightings during the day. My colleague Clive pointed out a young pale headed male marsh harrier over the South Brooks seen for several minutes from Hail’s View. He also called out a remarkably large flock of cormorants which flew from west of the Arun, circled over the South Brooks and landed out of sight apparently in the river. I counted 29 birds, many more than I’ve seen here before. Two of our regular Friday visitors mentioned seeing a bright red male crossbill near the heathland and 2 red kites flying over.
With so much variety and some very unusual geese to see, this had turned out to be one of those special days that are all part of the Pulborough Brooks experience.