Margie and I spent Sunday morning mooching around RSPB Pulborough Brooks. Glorious sunshine to start, first thing we noticed was the amount of water! I went a couple of weeks and it was very dry!! Margie got a couple of pictures
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| Some nice Autumnal colours |
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| This was completely dry a couple of weeks ago |
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| Lots of Canada Geese present |
Was pretty quiet down the Zigzags but things picked up in West Mead Hide, with a nice close Lapwing and a Kestrel flew into the adjacent Oak tree to eat it's catch, before it relocated to the scrape!
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| Robin |
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| Lapwing |
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| Kestrel |
Leaving the hide we were treated to a nice flypast from a couple of Red Kites
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| Red Kite |
As we walked through the fenced off area on the route to Winpenny Hide we had a lovely encounter with a small group of Goldcrests, showing well close to the path, spent a good 30 minutes here trying to get pics with mixed results!! There were also a couple of Black Caps, but no sign of a Firecrest or a Yellow-browed Warbler!! I got a few pics!!
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| Initially they played hard to get! |
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| but slowly came out to play |
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| Were picking small bugs off the leaves |
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| Typical view |
Margie took a break from the Goldcrests to take some pics of the plentiful berries!
There were a few Meadow Pipits in the field leading to Winpenny! One of which sat still long enough for a snap!
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| Meadow Pipit |
From Winpenny Hide we had a Buzzard, a Marsh Harrier, a Golden Plover and a Ruff amongst the Lapwings and Canada Geese!
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| Lots of Water |
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| Grey Heron |
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| Marsh Harrier |
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| Golden Plover, had white "armpits" so pretty sure it's a European one |
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| Common Buzzard sadly everything pretty distant from the hide! |
On the walk round to the Hanger we had a nice flyby by some Black-headed Gulls!
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| Black-headed Gull |
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| Canada Geese |
From the Hangar we were trying to identify a distant bird, I started off thinking it was Little Grebe, then a Common Scoter, then a Red Crested Pochard, eventually decided it might be a juvenile Shelduck!! It was kin miles away, my incompetence was rudely interrupted, when a about a million ducks erupted into the air (may have been a bit less than a million but there were a lot!!) The culprit turned out to be a female Marsh Harrier which I eventually got on thanks to Margie's expert directions!! " Infront of the Oak Tree" which one of the 35 Oak Trees? "Going over the pool?" Which kin Pool!! Anyway got it in the end!!
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| A Multitude of Duck, Wigeon, Teal, Pintail, Shoveller, Gadwall etc |
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| Marsh Harrier |
The disturbance caused by the Harrier, did allow some flight shots of some of the Wildfowl
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| Gadwall |
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| Wigeon |
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| Eventually the Marsh Harrier was seen off the premises by a squadron of Corvids |
We wandered around to the new viewpoint above Jupps where we had 30 secs of extreme excitement as a large Peregrine chased a Pigeon around right in front of us!! The Pigeon exited stage right with the Peg in hot pursuit, we didn't see the outcome!
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| Pintails amongst the Wigeon |
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| Lapwing |
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| Peregrine vs Pigeon, all happened very quick so excuse the poor pics, the blue sky had disappeared by this point |
At this point checking Birdguides I saw that a Red-backed Shrike had been found at Woodsmill, four miles from me house! I'm a sucker for a Shrike and needed RBS for the year so we decided to go for it. On the walk back to the carpark we were treated to another Red Kite flypast and a small flock of Redpolls!!
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| Red Kite |
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| Redpoll had to lighten these considerably |
Back to the car and we headed to Woodsmill, Kudos to Margie for sticking with it!! A route march through the reserve and we joined a small group of Birders looking at the Shrike, which showed quite well but a bit distantly. Looking at it, I thought this doesn't look like a RBS, it's got a pale grey back and a bright red tail, I was about to announce this to the assembled group, when the bloke behind me said,"so is this a Red-tailed or an Issy!" Seems someone else had beat me to it!!😀Quite proud of meself for working it out myself though!! Although it had already been changed on BG!! A few pics below! Distance and dull weather means they ain't great! Think at time of writing the bird is thought is be Isabelline rather than Red-tailed which is handy from a year tick point of view! Still slightly disappointed it wasn't a Red-backed!!
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| Isabelline Shrike |
Would've liked some Sunshine and a bit closer, but you gotta love a Shrike!!! Cracking end to brilliant day!
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