On Monday night, Hannah agreed to join me for an evening visit to Stanley Common to see if I could find any Nightjars or Woodcock. Looking back at the previous Breeding Bird Surveys of the common there have only been sporadic records of Nightjar although at least one if not more Woodcock are reported annually.
We arrived about 8.45pm and allowed sufficient time to stroll to the southern end of the site which has a better open habitat, officially sunset was at 9.06, but it would be up to 30 minutes after this when any activity would be expected. A Cuckoo was calling away then at 9.00pm exactly the first Woodcock appeared on its Roding flight, which it did a couple more times then around 9.20 there were two Woodcocks seen chasing each other, then a Hobby started calling and circling low over the trees , perhaps giving away a nest where it went into roost, a closer look will be warranted over the next couple of weeks. Then exactly at 9.30 a Nightjar started calling but only for around 20 seconds, we waited another 15 minutes before it started calling again a little closer. So this was a satisfying excursion.
Last year Dave B and I did a Spring Birdrace following pretty much the same route as the Winter race, keeping locally, we thought we did reasonably well notching up 73 species, given the lack of decent water bodies in the area high numbers of species are always going to be out of the question. We agreed at the end of last week to try Wednesday for another attempt as this looked as if it had the best weather, that was until yesterday, when the forecast changed to afternoon wind and rain. We decided to press on. The other obstacles surrounded road/engineering works. Thames Water closed the main access points to Blackdown car parks in the last week for a months worth of digging and the footpath to the furnace pond has been shut for reconstruction of the small damn, so we tweaked our plans slightly.
We were on the road at 4am and the first stop at Valewood was to see if we could find the Barn Owl, which had been present in Winter. We had singing Song Thrush, Robin, Blackbird and Tawny Owl, but as the light began its slow progress we became conscious of time , walking back towards the car a quick look in the barn and suddenly the Barn Owl took flight along with a Kestrel !. So successfully we headed to Blackdown, unfortunately the change in access point meant that after a short drive it was the Sussex equivalent of scaling the north face of the Eiger, and so slightly out of breath with burning calves we arrived at the top and onto the heath but surely too light for the crepuscular species who must have gone back to bed. We kidded ourselves that Nightjar and Woodcock would happily wait for the evening session and moved on to add Blackcap, Whitethroat, Willow Warbler, Chiffchaff, Garden Warbler, with 2 Cuckoos very vocal. As well as common species other heathland species such as Stonechat, Linnet, Woodlark, Tree Pipit and Dartford Warbler all fell into place and then a Redstart, which by no means was certain here, we also managed to scope Mandarin and Canada Goose on a pond in the valley, we descended back to the car having totalled 35 species.
The next stop was to Ebernoe Common, having not been there for a couple of years, it was a bit of a gamble that any Nightingales would still be singing as they often go quiet at the end of May, luckily, after a walk round the reserve where we had only really added Stock Dove and Marsh Tit, we had 2 Nightingales in full voice along with Skylark and Firecrest added it was a decent return.
Next was to a small pond Dave had identified just south of Lurgashall, this turned out to be a great spot as there were 2 Great Crested Grebes on the water along with Coot, Moorhen and family of Greylag Goose, all these being considered local rarities we also had GreyWagtail, Swift and Swallow and another good bird was Reed Warbler. We headed back towards Fernhurst and stopped at a vantage point to scan the distant Woolbeding ridge, quickly adding Red Kite and Green Woodpecker to get us to 60 species. The surprise from here was a pair of Spotted Flycatchers and a Crossbill.
We called in briefly at home adding Starling and Greenfinch, then carried on to Woolbeding, Siskin and Coal Tit went on the list before we had a gull double with Lesser-black backed and Herring, then a female Honey Buzzard was well appreciated as was a distant Cormorant and 2 Sparrowhawks.
Walking back to the car the weather had closed in and the predicted rain had started, so any more raptor watching was off the agenda. We headed further west firstly to Cook's Pond, seeing a surprising Tufted Duck on the way on the village pond in Milland. The big coup here was Dave spotting a Kingfisher fly towards the back of the pond and luckily I got onto it before it disappeared.
We were now on 76 species, so 3 more than last year, the weather was officially awful, but we carried on to Combe Pond, and only shortly before returning to the car did we add bird number 77, a Reed Bunting. It was about 2pm and despite being soaking wet we were quite pleased with ourselves but running out of options. We decided on a long shot to head to a couple of fishing lakes at Shilinglee, which neither of us had really stopped at before and we starting to ask ourselves why until we got there, the lakes were quite large but devoid of all avian life and surrounded by rhododendrens.
So we gave that up quite quickly and headed back to the vantage point over fernhurst again as momentarily we thought it might clear a little, other than a large number of House Martins feeding the weather then closed in again including a fog, so we headed back to my house for a cup of tea and cake and decided that the weather was set for the rest of the day so we finished on a respectable 77 with 80 species definitely in with a shot next year.
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