Lesser Spotted Woodpecker

 

You will probably see a lot of better pictures of Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers but for me these are special. I hadn't seen one for over 50 years and I have spent many hours looking. I have been close to a few. Standing at the bottom of a tree listening to the drumming, then hearing it start up again 50 metres away, when seemingly nothing had flown from the tree I was watching. A real bogey bird.

They are not a common bird in Sussex being mostly confined to a few woods in the northern part of the county. I really wanted to see one and for 2022 I had decided to target the New Forest, Burnham Beeches, and Cassiobury Park. All places I had tried before without success but this time it was going to be different. I would get there before the trees turned to leaf and spend all day looking for the Lesser Spot rather than getting distracted by other interesting birds. In 2022 I was going to nail it.

Then reports started to come in of occasional sightings of one in the Fattengates area of Pulburough Brooks. It had to be worth a look.

Needless to say it was not easy. Six hours walking the paths around the area last week just left me frustrated. Lesser Spots have big territories and it is pure luck being in the right place at the right time. Today I spent another morning walking the paths. By one o'clock I was ready to give up and move on. One last check and in the distance was a lone small bird foraging high in a tree. Most noticeable was its speed and style of movement flicking between branches. Backtracking a bit and I had it in the bins with the red cap clearly visible.

Getting a picture was an altogether different challenge. The light was poor, the camera was struggling to pull focus through the dense tree branches and the bird was moving rapidly making it difficult to keep in frame. It was also a long way off so these pictures are big crops. They are not good but then yesterday I had no pictures of Lesser Spots so they are better than nothing, a lot better.

I only had sight of the bird for a couple of minutes and when it flew it disappeared over the hedgerows and out of view. I searched but could not find it, perhaps its large territory means that it will travel longer distances between foraging stops.

As always, I would like to get some better pictures, so at some stage I will be going back for another look but for now I am more than happy. I have my record shots and seeing it now has freed up a number of birding days that were going to be dedicated to it next year.

The red cap shows that this is a male so we could be lucky with this one staying on territory and attracting a mate to the area as well.

Garden Warbler

I woke up this morning to what looked like a thick sea mist. I live close to the coast so there was always the hope that by the time I got to the top of the road I would be back in sunshine. No such luck this time and when I got to Pulborough Brooks I found myself sitting in a hide looking out at a bank of colourless grey fog.

It's probably appropriate then, that the first bird that appeared was a Grey Heron. The shots of the Heron below are far better than I saw on the day, its amazing what you can do in Photoshop to recover a picture.

Why does it look surprised? Well it had strayed too close to a Lapwings nest and it was under attack.

Look out

a warning pass

Followed by an exhibition of high speed precision flying -
a few inches lower and it would be impaled on the Heron's bill

Still defiant but moving away

and the Lapwing still intent on protecting it's territory

I was surprised that the Heron made no attempt to use its bill to defend itself. I would have thought that a quick stab would have brought the Lapwing down. But then I am thinking like a human and not like a bird. These territorial disputes probably have an etiquette that ensures that neither party gets injured.

With the fog gradually lifting I went to have a look at the Nightingales. An hour listening and watching these raised the spirits but did not give me many picture opportunities. They seem to have an uncanny ability to always perch with small branches in front of them.

In full song

From a distance the North Brooks did not look very promising but I decided to walk round to Nettley's Hide for a closer look. I am glad I did. There were distant views of a couple of Greenshanks and also a Green Sandpiper.

Greenshanks

Green Sandpiper

Linnets, Sedge Warblers, and Whitethroats were also showing well in front of the hide.

Linnet

Sedge Warbler

Whitethroat

The best find of the day, for me, was a Garden Warbler. This is a bird that always gives me problems but this time I managed to locate it from its song.

Garden Warbler

Sometimes you can walk around Pulborough Brooks and not see anything but today it was well worth the effort.

In the afternoon I went down to Selsey, mainly to look for the Sandpipers that have been reported on the Ferry Pool. There were none there on the way through but on returning later I found a Common at the back of the pool, a first for me this year.

I found the local Kestrel on the ground in the pumping station and in the process of devouring what ever it had caught. I grabbed my camera but I was stuck on the wrong side of the road, unable to cross because of the amount of traffic going by. I had to settle for a flight shot later.

Kestrel

A visit to the North Wall was equally disappointing. Last week it was flooded, this week it has the lowest water levels I have ever seen. Whoever controls the sluice gates seems to be doing their best to destroy the habitat.

Little Ringed Plover on the drying up bed of the Breech Pool. It should be under a couple of feet of water.

A great day out spoilt by what seems to be the wanton destruction of one of my favourite birding spots.

Bullfinches

As far as waders and wildfowl are concerned I am not a great fan of Pulborough Brooks. There are great expanses of water, but the birds are usually too distant even for record shots. The place is actually better for the smaller birds with Bullfinches, Goldcrests, and later in the year Nightingales being relatively easy to capture.

Today, however, with the brooks and scrapes likely to be frozen over and with the possibility of finding birds out on the ice looking for open water, it seemed worth another visit. It was worth the try but it was nearly a wasted trip. There were birds on the ice, as we had expected, but they were all the common ducks. We managed to find a group of ten Snipe foraging near West Mead Hide but other than those and a few Lapwing I did not see a single wader all day.

Snipe

Fortunately the visit was rescued by the Bullfinches and a few good looking Fieldfares we spotted as we walked around.

Fieldfare

We found a small flock of six Bullfinches close by West Mead hide, a couple at Fattengates and another three or four at the top of the zigzags. They were all very mobile and it was difficult to get shots of them but it did occupy us for an interesting hour or so.

Bullfinch

Keen to improve on our Bullfinch shots we then headed off to the Arundel Wetland Centre where Dave had photographed a couple of females the previous week.  They were still where he had left them, feeding on the buddleia bushes just outside the Sand Martin hide. These were a little tamer than the Pulborough birds and had no intention of leaving their food source even when people passed within a few feet of them. Unfortunately though, there was no male to photograph.

Female Bullfinch

A quick look from the Sand Martin hide gave us the unexpected bonus of a Grey Wagtail actively feeding on the waters edge and the interesting challenge of could you get a shot that was not a complete blur as it raced up and down

Grey Wagtail

I had one final opportunity for a photograph as we headed back for the car. One of my favourite birds the Dunnock, almost too close to get him in the frame.

Dunnock

Overall, not a bad day. A few decent pictures of the Bullfinches, sightings of Water Rail, Treecreeper and Goldcrest and a few year ticks and I went home happy.

Pulborough Brooks Brown Hairstreak

A disappointing days birding. The promised brighter skies did not turn up and neither did the birds. It was one of those dull, overcast and oppressive days, not good for photography and very little bird song, the birds don't seem to like them either.

We started off at Waltham Brooks with good views of Willchaffs and Lesser Whitethroats. None close enough or still long enough for a good photograph but a promising start. We gave the ducks a once over but obviously missed the Garganeys that Alan Kitson saw around the same time. I would probably struggle to spot the difference between female Garganey and Teal but I hope I did not miss a male.

We had one heart stopping moment when a buzzard flew towards us from the south. In flight it had a profile with very flat wings and the call sounded unusual. Could it be a Honey Buzzard? It looked a possibility but we will never know as did not come close enough to confirm the distinguishing features.

The sewage works gave us distant views of Grey Wagtails but again the picture opportunities were limited.

Grey Wagtail

At about 11.30 we headed off to Pulborough Brooks which was surprisingly empty of both birds and bird watchers. I had thought that with the the previous couple of day's crowds searching for the Broad-billed Sandpiper there would still be a hangover of people. It wasn't the reason we had gone there but perhaps we would be lucky, miss the crowds and get the bird. No such luck, more Willchaffs and Whitethroats, distant views of Common Sandpiper, Greenshank, and Mandarin Ducks but nothing unusual.

It was left to the butterflies and dragonflies to rescue the day again. We missed the real prize a very large Brown Hawker that kept threatening to put down but eventually flew off. the consolation prize was that in chasing it we came across a couple of Comma Butterflies. Nothing unusual in that except that one of them looks like it may be an aberration, probably ab. carbonaria. I know that overwintering Commas do have a darker underwing but this looks exceptional.

Comma - It looks normal from the top view

but it has a very dark underwing

At least the dark colours show off the white comma which gives this butterfly it name. It's strange how the more you get into butterflies the more you find there is to see and learn.

As we headed down towards Nettleys hide we passed under some Ash trees with Buckthorn growing underneath them. Dave commented that it should be a good place for Brown Hairstreaks but neither of us was really looking. I stopped to photograph a Scorpion Fly that disappeared before I could get the macro lens out but when I turned around there was a female Brown Hairstreak resting on some bracken. A soft approach through the bracken was not really possible and I did eventually flush it back up into the trees but at least I got a record shot.

Female Brown Hairstreak

So another attempt to get back to birding that ended up focusing on Butterflies. Things should improve over the next few weeks as the migration start to take hold and the waders begin to return.

Goosander

Another morning spent padding out the year list. This time we went up to Petworth Park to tick off the Goosander and Egyptian Geese. Neither were playing ball. The Goosander was on the usual lower lake but was mobile and seemed determined to stay as far away from us as possible. We settled for distant shots rather than chasing him around. I assume that he is the same bird as last year but he seems much more reticent about having his picture taken this year.

Goosander but a bit distant

 
The geese are usually on the same lake or in the tree at the south end of the lake. This time all we could find were two out in the park close to the deer. We intended to get pictures as we made our way back to the car but they took off and did a flyby to inspect us before disappearing into the field on the opposite side of the road. I would normally be happy with the chance to get them flying, but this time the camera was not ready and I was a bit slow seeing the opportunity, so no pictures.

There are a lot of old trees in the park and we are always hopeful of finding an owl in one of them. No owls this time but there were Treecreepers everywhere.

Treecreeper

This is a bit of a bogey bird for me. I see them often enough but I have never managed to get a good picture.

We still had a couple of hours of the morning left so we dropped in at Pulborough Brooks. We had a walk down to the West Mead hide but the path was flooded beyond that point. I had seen the pictures but you get no idea of the volume of water involved until you sit in the hide and look out over the brooks. It was like being on the coast. As you would expect all the birds were on the far side of the water probably a mile or so away. We had to be content with a few Fieldfare and Redwings feeding in the bushes close by the hide.

Fortunately one of the Fieldfare came into the open to dispute territory with a Blackbird and I managed to get a couple of pictures.

Fieldfare

There being nowhere else to go we retired to the cafe and sat out on the terrace with a bacon baguette and a cup of tea whilst we added a few more year ticks from amongst the birds using the feeders.