Of Birds & Cake the Blog of Paul: Pulborough Gales

It was a bit windy at RSPB Pulborough Brooks today, but these Gales are Nightingales!! Margie and I arrived just after 8 AM, think most of Sussex were there!!😂 It started well with a Nightingale singing in the car park!! Now as we know Nightingales sound fantastic, it's all about the song, but they can be blooming annoying trying to get a pic of!!!!

The bugger stayed deep in the bushes, but I got a couple of record shots! I was going for dark and moody!

We gave up after about 15 minutes and headed on to the reserve, first stop the pond to have a look for Newts!

The pond by Margie

Loads of Newts swimming about, I'm pretty sure these Smooth Newts, Pic by Margie

Another of Margie's Newt pics, hers came out a lot better than mine!!

The view from the Pond by Margie

Pond Skater, lots of Snails, whirly-thingys and Diving beetles in the Pond as well as the multitude of Newts

We dragged ourselves away, down the Zig-Zags, first Cuckoo of the year heard, also heard and brief glimpse of a Bullfinch, Chiffchaffs calling as well! We heard a couple more Nightingales but couldn't get eyes on them. The first hide was chocca with people so we walked around to Winpenny, great views of an Adder having a sunbathe.

Margie's pic of a Mallard in the flowers

Common Whitethroat, lots about

Stonechat

Pheasant

Adder, tricky to get in focus pics of!

The view from Winpenny by Margie

Margie got pics of a bit of the Adder

We continued around the reserve, the wind was brutal at the Hanger, no sign of the Green-winged Teal, though we had Avocets, Pintail and Sedge Warbler of interest!

Goldfinch

Chiffchaff

Gadwall

Pair of Pintail

Primrose by Margie

Bluebell by Margie

We completed the circuit and visited West Mead hide, as we approached I had my first Sandmartin, Housemartin and Swifts of the year!!

Housemartin

Swift, saw 4 all together

Sandmartin

From the hide, we had distant Red Kites and Buzzards, a Great White Egret being harassed by Gulls, a couple of Little Egrets, several Lapwings, a few Redshanks and a pair of Egyptian Geese. There was also a couple of Avocets.

Egyptian Geese

Lapwing

Avocet

Great White Egret

Lapwing

Redshank

Little Egret

This female Blackcap was moving around the tree, quite tricky to get pics of!

We headed back to the visitor center, stopping to play with the Newts again. The visitor center was very busy so we headed back to the car, we had heard several Nightingales around the reserve but no luck seeing them, the one next to the car was still singing, so we gave it another go, staring intently into the bush with our bins while the Nightingale seemed to move from one part to the other, eventually it appeared on the edge, still obscured by a few branches obvs😂 but I got a few pics and we had cracking views in the bins!