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
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