Each year the Sussex Ornitholigical Society invites teams to enter a Birdrace and to raise funds which go towards conservation projects. The idea being to record as many species as possible in a 24 hour period in the first 2 weeks of January.
I had not taken part before, but suggested to Dave Burges that we give it a go, so we entered a team and and added Craig Welsby as our third member. Our team name, the West Weald Wanderers, arrived at after little thought on the basis that this was the area we intended to cover. Many teams go all out to see as many species in the county as possible taking in as many sites both coastal and inland and get reasonably high totals in excess of 100 birds. That was never going to be us. We restricted our viewing area to the West Weald in the North West of Sussex, which limited our area to just West of Milland near the Hampshire border to Blackdown further East near the Surrey border and only South as far as Woolbeeding Common. The only water in the area is restricted to a couple of small ponds so there were entire families of birds which would be out of our reach, The 'wandering' therefore would be restricted to the West Weald or over it, on it and what felt like under it in the muddier parts. We were not going to win any prizes for species totals, although somehow we hoped to avoid the wooden spoon, but the area can have some more specialised birds (Woodlark, Dartford Warbler, Crossbill, Goshawk etc) which were going to be a challenge to find as they were not necessarily holding territories yet.
The weather would be an important part, over the last week it has been unpredictable and at times windy, occasionally wet and often with poor visibility, As it turned out the weather was ok. It was at least dry, but did not brighten at all during the day with mostly leaden skies and the visibility was only moderate, the wind was not too strong but did have a bite with temperatures probably around 3c.
We met up in the car park in Fernhurst around 7.10 with a Robin singing away. we drove in the dark down Vann Road an pulled in before Elmers Marsh and added both Tawny Owl and Song Thrush both in full voice. We continued towards Milland and the first bit of real luck, a Barn Owl sitting on top of a road sign. This was only an outside chance as neither Dave or I knew of local site for them. We stopped on the road around Trotton Marsh and picked up Blackbird, Carrion Crow and Buzzard, just as a hint of daylight was appearing. Next stop was Coombe Pond, where Mallard, Mandarin, Moorhen, Grey Heron and Cormorant were the new birds on the pond and walking through the woods there until we could view the fields at the back also gave us Redpoll, Siskin, Redwing and Marsh Tit, so a satisfying start given it was only 8.30.
We returned to view the fields over Trotton Marsh and struck lucky with a pair of Raven, singing Mistle Thrush and a couple of Meadow Pipit, although I spotted a distant Skylark songflighting but it had plummeted to the ground before the others could get onto it and we had already decided we probably needed to do a long walk circuit of these fields.
A very quick look over Cook's Pond held absolutely nothing before we parked up and headed out over Trotton Marsh. A House Sparrow by the start of the footpath and then a flyover Yellowhammer, with Rooks and Jackdaws soon followed by Kestrel, Linnet and Goldfinch. We then heard a brief but distant Woodlark, but couldn't get Craig onto the call so we continued to the highest point overlooking the fields and failed to find a Skylark which was a little irritating only adding Coal Tit and Long-tailed Tit. Our return route passed the farm buildings and then we found a flock of Fieldfare with some Redwing more Yellowhammer and thankfully 2 Skylark and in the fields beyond not only calling but a full singing Woodlark , so we left the area with complete list of what we'd hoped to see and were now up to 45 approaching 11.30.
We drove back through Milland picking up Feral Pigeon and Collared Dove and banked the field full of Little Egrets which were duly in place (all 19 of them) along with 2 Black-headed Gulls and a Pied Wagtail, we were up to 50, so steady and muddy.
The next stop was Woolbeeding Common with the hope of maybe picking up a Reed Bunting on the common and maybe a raptor or 2 from the ridge,(Sparrowhawk and Red Kite were the main possibilities) but the tramp round the common didn't yield a single bird of any description and the 30 minutes watching the ridge was equally disappointing with no new species, just a Buzzard and a Mistle Thrush, the weather hadn't really brightened up and the cloud was still thick and low.
We parked up near the candle factory and walked towards the Furnace Pond, with an immediate improvement as we bagged a Dunnock, which incredibly until now had avoided us, Treecreeper, Teal, Coot and Goldcrest. We walked to the place I'd seen Hawfinch the previous week but there was no sign, however at the edge of the field an explosion of Woodpigeons and a couple of Crows going mad alerted us and as male Goshawk flew through being chased by the crows at the level of the tree line., definitely the best bird of the day.
We did note at that point that the Goshawk was great but we still hadn't seen a Sparrowhawk yet and it eluded us all day. I knew that at home I could hopefully get a Brambling although we weren't going to give it more than 15 minutes, and surely enough there were a couple on the feeders along with Greenfinch. Dave also picked up 2 distant Herring Gulls which I managed to see but Craig didn't before they disappeared behind the trees.
Approaching 1.45pm we decided to chance a look at the tiny treatment plant just on the main road in Fernhurst, not really knowing if we could get a view, but we needed somewhere to try for Grey Wagtail. Sure enough through the fence, a Grey Wagtail was perched on top of one of the 2 settling beds. There was also a decent flock of Crests and immediately I saw a Firecrest, but it melted away before I could get the others onto it, we searched in the vain hope of finding a wintering Chiffchaff but were out of luck.
Then onto Blackdown, which was our last destination but with some important targets being mainly Dartford Warbler and Stonechat, which we knew were on the site but maybe a chance of Crossbill and maybe a late Woodcock. It turned out that the Crossbills were the easiest as Matt was already there and had 4 in a pine when we found him. The Stonechats eventually gave themselves up then at last we heard the brief sound of a Dartford Warbler, but it turned out that Dave was tying his shoelace when it called, it was a further 30 minutes before we found another one as the light was fading, we hung around for a further 20 minutes until dusk with only a few Meadow Pipits seemingly going to roost but no woodcock to finish the day.
We finished with a team total of 63, there were 2 more species Firecrest and Herring Gull seen but not by all which didn't make the list. Given the restricted locality and time of year the list was respectable enough, maybe we will try again in Spring to see the difference !
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