Knepp Storks

I woke up around five this morning, too late for the dawn chorus but still early enough to catch the tail end of it. I hadn't been to Knepp for about a year, so was interested to see how the stork introduction project was going and with the estate hosting Nightingales, Turtle Doves, and Cuckoos there should be some decent bird song on offer as well.

I am not sure how many Stork pairs are nesting at Knepp but I managed to see two nests. The first about 300 metres past the camp shop to the south of the main path. It's in the top of a dead tree clear of the surrounding green branches and is very easy to spot but the views are a bit distant unless you are prepared to leave the path. Storks are usually very tolerant of people and on the continent will often nest on a house roof or close to a busy road but I wasn't taking any chances.

The second nest was also distant but gave good views from some deep cover and the lighting was better for taking pictures. From reports issued by the project team I believe this nest contains the first Stork chicks born in this country for centuries.

Unfortunately I didn't see the chicks. The male came in and at first I thought he was carrying food but it turned out to be top up nesting material.

There were also good views of six storks circling in the updrafts. I am not sure if you can still refer to it as a kettle if they are not preparing for migration. It's great to watch but pictures don't really do it justice. However there were a couple of low passes from single birds in flight and I did eventually get a reasonable picture.

Elsewhere on the estate the bird song lived up to expectations. At least two Turtle Doves heard although I couldn't see either of them. Five or six Cuckoos, or one very mobile Cuckoo, with a couple of fleeting sightings from fly overs. Also a good number of Nightingales that  at times could only have been a few yards away but which gave no views at all. Very disappointing but nice to listen to.

The other disappointment was the number of people that were there, walkers, cyclists, runners, and birders. I was on my own when I arrived but by ten o'clock as I was leaving it felt quite crowded. You start to realise why the estate is trying to enforce people staying on the designated pathways. They are at risk of becoming victims of their own success.


Crowds or not, I think I might have to go back to see the Storks fledging.

Turtle Dove

It has been a bit of a mixed bag so far this week. Tuesday I was out looking for Turtle Doves on the Knepp Estate. There had been a number of reports of them posted but after four hours of searching I hadn't even managed to hear one purring. There were Cuckoos calling all over the place but they were very difficult to see. At least the Storks were showing well. I assume these two were from the re-introduction scheme. They looked like Red DC and Grey CU. Odd though that they had the rings on opposite legs.

With nothing much else showing, I went over to Woods Mills to look for a Turtle Dove there. The result was exactly the same

White Storks probably from the Knepp re-introduction sceme

Wednesday morning, this time with Dave as my good luck charm, we tried Woods Mills again and one of the first birds we saw was a Turtle Dove.

Then off to find our next target, West Sussex Wall Brown butterflies. A quick trek up onto the downs and we had eight to ten of the butterflies in our sights. Great butterflies to see but very territorial and aggressive and thus difficult to photograph as they are always on the move.

Wall Brown

Wall Brown

We also managed to find a single Small Blue at Kithurst Meadow but in the scramble to get a picture it did a disappearing act and we could not relocate it. I am always surprised at just how small they actually are. Later on we had our first Small Copper at Whiteways.

Small Copper

Green-veined Whites

Green-veined White mud puddling

Brimstone

And the dragonfly season is also under way with the best seen so far, an early Brown Hawker at Rowlands Wood. I see them there most years but as ever it failed to put down anywhere for a picture.

Broad-bodied Chaser

Azure Damselfly

Large Red Damselfly

So a good day Tuesday. Wednesday we were out early looking for more of the same. This time at  Old Lodge with targets of Woodlark, Tree Pipit and Redstart. Unfortunately the weather did not live up to expectations, being cold and windy, and we only managed the Woodlark.

Woodlark

 Compensation was in the form of a Garden Warbler that Dave found belting out its song from halfway up a Pine tree in Rowlands Wood. My first of the year.

Garden Warbler

Coto Donana - Bonanza Saltpans

The main targets for the day were the Slender-billed Gulls at the  Bonanza Saltpans and the White-headed Ducks at the Laguna de Tarelo.  It involved a long journey back through Sevilla and down the eastern side of the Guadalquivir river.  There were a number of other sites in the area to visit if we found our targets early but, as happens, things did not go exactly to plan, although we did find both targets fairly easily.

The Slender-billed Gulls were on the saltpans and viewable from the main road just north of Bonanza. There were probably about forty in total and they were very easy to identify. The pinkish heads and long black bills showed well but their behaviour was also unusual. They stayed in tight groups and seemed to be involved in communal feeding. A rare and unusual gull and it was good to be able to get such clear views.

The White-headed Duck, probably eight to ten of them, were also where they were supposed to be on the Laguna de Tarelo but they were a long way off. You can just about identify them in the picture below.

Distant White-headed Ducks  -  Heavy crop

We checked out the route through the Algaida Pine forest without finding much other than a few distant Black Kites and Buzzards. We also checked a few of the pools up by the river but found little of interest. Running out of time we had to head for home but were left with the feeling that we could have spent a couple more days around the area.

Where did we go wrong? We decided to visit La Senuela to see the Stork Colony and then to follow the road down by the side of the Guadalquivir River to the Bonanza Saltpans. It all looked good at the start although it was a bumpy ride into La Senuela an old and seemingly abandoned church. The trouble was that we managed to flush most of the Storks and we should really have arrived in the afternoon when the lighting would have been better.

La Senuela

Moving on, the route along the river started off really well and we had good views of a few Night Herons although all were in varying levels of cover.

Night Heron

After having travelled about 20km the road started to deteriorate and we were at serious risk of grounding the car in trying to manoeuvre around some major potholes. In the end we had to give up and retrace much of the distance we had covered. We lost a lot of time and checking the maps afterwards we were probably only a kilometre short of hitting a good road.