With the East Grinstead RSPB Group near Chichester - Little Gulls and Hawfinches.

 

Saturday 26^th November 2022

Fishbourne Creek (a.m.) and West Dean Woods (p.m.), West Sussex

East Grinstead RSPB Local Group

(9 members present)

Trip Report

It was with a sense of apprehension that we travelled down to Chichester for our latest birding trip.  Little, if any, information had been reported about bird sightings at both our chosen sites in the previous few weeks.  Any fears of a dearth of birds were soon allayed however and most of the expected species were present.  We had a very good outing, clocking up a very respectable 50+ species for the day. 

The “weather gods” were on our side this time.  After the recent wet spell, the rain held off and we enjoyed some very mild conditions.

 

Fishbourne Creek

 The highlights are listed below:

• We parked in Dell Quay Road and in the adjacent field we were greeted by 100-200 Brent geese.  By the time we returned, almost 3 hours later, that number had swollen to almost 1000.
• We assembled by the Crown and Anchor pub.  The tide was out so there was a good variety of waders on show on the shoreline, including greenshank, grey plover, oystercatcher, redshank, lapwing, little egret and wigeon.
•  As we moved along the creek, a black swan was swimming downstream on the far side of the water.

Courtesy of Paul Stillman

•               More waders were seen as we moved along the east shores – the wigeon looked immaculate, the dunlin were busy and there was a lovely ringed plover.

Wigeon – courtesy of Ian Hodgson

• Someone had placed a bird feeder on the trees arching over our path. This attracted the passerines of which the greenfinch was perhaps the most interesting.
• The most unexpected sighting was in the area close to the sewerage outlet where we came across 5 little gulls which were associating with the black-headed gulls.  The           behaviour of the two species couldn’t have been more contrasting – the little gulls were flying a few feet above the black-headed gulls, which were on the water, only coming down to “kiss the water” momentarily before ascending again.  This was the closest most of us had ever been to this species and their movement was truly majestic to watch.

 

courtesy of Ian Hodgson

 

 courtesy of Martin Jeffree

• Other species of note were yellowhammer, grey wagtail, skylark,  meadow pipit and rock pipit

 

Yellowhammer - courtesy of Paul Stillman

 

 

Species List:  Fishbourne Creek

Name:			Name
Blackbird	1		Little Gull	22
Black-headed Gull	2		Long-tailed Tit	23
Black-tailed Godwit	3		Magpie	24
Black Swan	4		Meadow Pipit	25
Blue Tit	5		Mute Swan	26
Brent Goose	6		Oystercatcher	27
Carrion Crow	7		Pied Wagtail	28
Chaffinch	8		Redshank	29
Common Gull	9		Redwing	30
Cormorant	10		Ringed Plover	31
Curlew	11		Robin	32
Dunlin	12		Rock Dove / Feral Pigeon	33
Great Crested Grebe	13		Rock Pipit	34
Great Tit	14		Skylark	35
Greenfinch	15		Song Thrush	36
Greenshank	16		Starling	37
Grey Heron	17		Turnstone	38
Grey Plover	18		Wigeon	39
Grey Wagtail	19		Woodpigeon	40
Lapwing	20		Yellowhammer	41
Little Egret	21

Species count = 41

 

 

West Dean Woods

After lunch 6 of us transferred to West Dean Woods, hoping to see our target species - Hawfinch.  

• In fact we finished up seeing at least 5 from the Monkton track.

Courtesy of Martin Jeffree

Other highlights included:

•   All of us saw a couple of red kites.  Martin and I came across another 6 as we drove out of the woods at the end of the day
•  Another intriguing event was the sight of 20-30 ravens in the air at the same time.  Some of them were attacking at least 2 nearby buzzards.  We normally expect to see lone ravens or maybe a pair but none of us had ever seen such a gathering as this.  Awesome!
•   Martin and I also came across a covey of red partridge and a green woodpecker as we drove away from the woods

 

 

Species List:  West Dean Woods

Name:
Blackbird	1
Blue Tit	2
Buzzard	3
Carrion Crow	4
Chaffinch	5
Fieldfare	6
Great Spotted Woodpecker	7
Green Woodpecker	8
Hawfinch	9
Jay	10
Long-tailed Tit	11
Pheasant	12
Raven	13
Red Kite	14
Red-legged Partridge	15
Wren	16

                                                           Species count = 16       

 

 

Well done Kevin for organising this event and thanks to our members for their support. 

Special thanks to all three of our photographers for the lovely images.

 

Another memorable trip!

Bob Hastings

 Year total = 214