Thursday 17th January - Winter Warbling

Warblers shouldn't be spending the Winter in Britain, indeed the vast majority head south to African forests. There has always been a few Blackcaps which stay behind, mostly in the warmer southern suburbs, where bird-table fodder seems to satisfy their Winter needs, and of course more frequently Chiffchaffs can be found often around working sewage plants which have open filter beds which provide sufficient Winter bugs, presumably pooh flies are the Chiffchaff equivalent of Christmas Turkey. The very occasional Yellow-browed Warbler or lingering Dusky Warbler are located and the slightly less common Hume's Warbler. Such an individual being present in Newhaven, East Sussex for the last few weeks.

Thursday morning I went to Newhaven to the Ouse Estuary scrubland to find this individual. There was a fairly large area of scrub, mainly Elder and Bramble. The Hume's Warbler has a reasonable distinct call, which I heard as soon as I reached the area in which it had been seen. Seeing the little blighter proved to be a bit more of a challenge. It would only call very intermittently, say every 30 minutes, and it stubbornly occupied the middle layer of the dense scrub, so was pretty uncooperative. It was a bright morning but with a biting wind and even a few brief snow flurries.

About an hour later, I had my first glimpse of the bird, but it then went to ground again, with no sight or sound. It took another hour before eventually it started feeding on the outside edge of a bramble and Elder bush giving more satisfactory views, reasonably distinct in it's appearance as a much paler bird than it's yellow-browed cousin.

Hume's Warbler

Staying hidden in the scrub for long periods

Tuesday 15th January - Birding beats commuting

The irony of doing a Birdrace is that there are often obvious missed species, one such bird was a Grey Heron, we couldn't find one anywhere, so hardly a surprise when the next morning there was one sitting in my garden pond !, along with a Lesser Redpoll on the feeder another absentee the previous day.

Today, I had half a day free, before needing to get to Petersfield, The weather was 7c and very overcast with a bit of drizzle. I started in Arundel overlooking the Arun, near the WWT centre and as it got light, 10 Bewick Swans left their roost to head out to the fields. A Tawny Owl was hooting away and 2 Barn Owls were hunting on the field edges, with one successfully catching a vole. Also a couple of Marsh Harriers headed out form the WWT centre.

At around 8.30 I went round to Burpham and walked out from the car park, seeing the Bewick Swans below the church in their fields. The small sewage works had a dozen or more Chiffchaff and a Grey Wagtail, one distinct Chiffchaff was very much of the tristis race, and another couple were likely abietinus.

From the triangle viewpoint a Merlin was perched up on a distant hedge was a good find and plenty of Buzzards and Red Kites and Ravens were over the fields. As I walked up beyond Peppering Farm a few small groups of Reed Bunting fed on the track, but surprisingly no other buntings were visible and only 2 Skylark were seen all morning. A flock of Lapwing numbering around 75 birds were scattered on one field and 3 Red-legged Partridge and one covey of Grey Partridge were added, but generally the area was very quiet.

I headed back, stopping briefly to overlook Amberley Wildbrooks from the Rackham viewpoint, but found the area very dry, only a small group of Wigeon in one ditch and a single Little Egret were of interest.

Grey Heron in garden pond

Nuthatch, already nest prospecting.

Lapwing

Grey Partridge

Friday 11th January - Birdrace

Last year Dave Burges and I entered the SOS winter Birdrace as the West Weald Wanderers. The idea to pick a day in the first 2 weeks of January to see as many species in Sussex in a 24 hour period. The limiting factor at this time of year is that daylight is restricted to 8 hours between 8am and 4pm. Many of the teams stick to coastal areas and with seabirds, ducks and waders on the menu can reasonably easily notch up over 100 species. Our plan was (maybe foolishly) different, to restrict our range to just over a Tetrad on the map, ranging between Blackdown to Woolbeding to Trotton Marsh. All just inside the Sussex border, but immediately eliminating the possibility of Seabirds, Ducks and Waders !.

Our first attempt last year we did pretty well, notching up 63 species, but every year is different !. The weather this year has been much drier, even the local arable fields which last year were bird-friendly stubble , this year are holding a bird-less Winter Wheat crop.

We met up at 7am in Fernhurst and immediately headed off to Valewood and our target was heard and seen immediately as we got out of the car , a Barn Owl, along with a Tawny Owl hooting away in the background. We decided to head straight to Blackdown for chances of Woodcock as it got light. We had no luck with that, but spent a couple of hours on the site hoping the main targets of Dartford Warbler, Crossbill and Stonechat would appear. The first 2 were seen but a good trawl of the site gave a blank to Stonechats. We did pick up other species such as Brambling, Siskin, Linnet, Meadow Pipit, both Woodpeckers, Buzzard and Marsh Tit. before we left. We called briefly in at Fernhurst sewage works where both Grey Wagtail and Pied Wagtail were seen, and then stopped at a viewpoint hoping for raptors and Raven., although all the other corvids were seen, no Raven  and at this point no raptors, although the signs for a later raptor watch were better as it looked like it may brighten up. We headed West, briefly calling in at home to pick up Greenfinch, Stock Dove and Dunnock and a Red Kite on the way to the first of 3 ponds. Mandarin, Mallard, Moorhen, Coot and Cormorant made it to the list , but we lacked Grey Heron.

The fields at Trotton Marsh, where last year we picked up Yellowhammer, Woodlark, Skylark and Fieldfare were completely empty, probably due to the crop being grown, although we did have a bonus Peregrine. We left Trotton Marsh on 53 Species, which at 12.45 was not bad, but with worrying gaps in the list.

Then  our guaranteed Little Egrets had disappeared !. Last year a large number spent all winter in horse Paddocks around Elmers Marsh. Before xmas I counted 26 and 2 days ago both Dave and I had seen 2- The fields had obviously dried up so much they departed . We did add Sparrowhawk and after lunch on the go, we had good views of an adult female Goshawk.

The last 2 hours proved pretty fruitless, we had a number of major gaps on the list that could be anywhere, but the few places we tried we didn't add to our tally, finishing up again on a quiet Blackdown in the hope that either we'd find a Stonechat or that something new would come in to roost. There were 30+ Meadow Pipits and 50+ Linnet then a sub-adult male Goshawk just before dusk, but we resigned the day on 55. SO a disappoint total but still a good day out birding.

The major omissions compared to a year ago were Grey Heron, Little Egret, Teal, Feral Pigeon !, Stonechat, Skylark, Woodlark, Fieldfare, Raven, Redpoll and Yellowhammer. But we did see Red Kite, Peregrine and Sparrowhawk, that were missed a year ago

Wednesday 9th January - 2019

Arrived back from Zimbabwe late on Monday, from temperatures up to 40c, so a severe drop to contend with, although it looks like calm and dry weather has prevailed here, the biggest adjustment is lack of daylight.

I went for a early morning walk from the house to the rhythm of a frosty start. Naturally the birds were a little thin on the ground. Still a few Redwing around but in small numbers, and yesterday a flock of 25+ Fieldfare alighted near the house. A Grey Wagtail was on the Furnace pond sluice and a couple of Mandarin lurked at the back of the pond. 4 Crossbill were in one of the pine belts. Despite not feeding the birds at home for 3 weeks it wasn't long before the feeders were full and there was plenty of activity with around 20 each of Goldfinch and Siskin, along with a few Chaffinch, Bullfinch a single Brambling and 4 Greenfinch (increasingly a difficult bird to locate). I also found a Firecrest at the back of the last field, so hopefully this will hang around in the Gully for Spring.

A Frosty start to the day.

Roe Deer