Nightingales

Today we were after Nightingales and any other of the Little Brown Jobs (LBJs) that we could find to fill the gaps in our year lists. This usually makes for an interesting days birding but a frustrating day for photography. The birds are often hard to find, they move fast, and they stay in cover. By the time you have identified them they have usually moved on and getting them in the view finder long enough to take a picture requires a lot of patience.  Fortunately that does not apply to the Nightingales. If you can find them out in the open they are usually more interested in singing and you can get some good views.

We started the day at Waltham Brooks where we had already seen Nightingales and Sedge Warblers on a previous visit. It was only a quick stopover and we did not find anything unusual although I was particularly pleased with this shot of a Linnet.

Linnet

It shouldn't have really worked. It was dull, windy, the bird was facing away from me, and it was too far away. I had no expectations of getting a usable shot. It perhaps makes up for the far more numerous occasions when I get home expecting to have superb shots in the camera, only to find, that when I put them up on the computer screen, they are not quite there.

Pulborough Brooks is a good place to observe the Nightingales. You have the best chance of seeing them when they first arrive and are establishing their territories. Later on you will still hear them singing but it will be from cover and they will be a lot harder to see.

There were plenty of Whitethroats around and a couple of Lesser Whitethroats but as usual the Lessers where proving hard to pin down. I was also pleased to get a shot of a Garden Warbler, a bird that I have had problems identifying and photographing in the past.

Whitethroat

Whitethroat

Garden Warbler

Late in the afternoon we were sitting having a cup of tea when Paul Snelgrove (Icemelter4) rushed in to tell us that there was a White Stork circling over the North Brooks. My thanks to Paul, it was a first for me in the UK and I would not have been very happy to have got home and found that I had missed it.

One final picture that I forgot to put on Tuesday's blog. Two Adders, I assume they are mating. The female is the larger brown coloured and the male the grey.

Adders mating

Its not the best picture I have ever taken but its certainly unusual and I did not want to get any closer in case I disturbed them.

Nightingales

Last year I spent a lot of time standing in front of bushes listening to Nightingales singing but failed to see a single bird. This year I was determined to start looking at the beginning of the mating season when the birds were more likely to be displaying in the open and when the bushes would have less green growth.

Pulborough Brooks RSPB is one of the more reliable sites in Sussex for finding the Nightingale and I had a good idea where to look from last years failed attempts. I visited the site today but did not get there until about one o'clock and my initial walk around proved very disappointing with virtually no birds visible and very limited bird song. However, by three o'clock everything had changed and the hedges were alive with birds.

The ground was not doing so bad either with a number of snakes and slow worms visible. These two were within about three feet of each other. I think if I were the Slow Worm I might put a bit more distance between us before the adder woke up.

Male Adder

Slow Worm

Being a photographer I did wonder about doing a bit of gardening around the adder to tidy up the picture but I felt sure he was watching me from below that blade of grass.

The Nightingales were around and I heard a number of them singing, although I was told that they had been displaying more openly on the previous day. I missed a couple of good shots but was happy to leave with a few decent record shots. I am looking forward to returning over the next couple of weeks to improve on these.

Nightingale

The song is amazing. It's too unstructured to be my favourite but the volume and the range are truly impressive and the energy that the bird puts into it makes you wonder how it can stay singing for so long.

There were plenty of Blackcaps, Warblers, and Whitethroates around but I spent the rest of my time there trying to get a decent picture of a Redstart. I would have preferred the more colourful male but as this was my first sighting of the year I needed a record.

Female Redstart

I think a trip to Old Lodge Nature Reserve may be in order whilst the males are still showing well.

I could not resist finishing off with this Green Woodpecker, one of two seen foraging in the cow fields.

Green Woodpecker