Wednesday, 1 January 2025

Fishbourne Creek and West Dean Woods with the Ashdown Bird Group on Sunday

 

Sunday 1st December 2024

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

Ashdown Bird Group

(8 members present)

What a contrast to last year's corresponding outing when we enjoyed glorious weather!  Today it was awful with rain from the start, which persisted until midday.  It was also surprisingly colder than we expected.  Some of us, myself included, had really misjudged the forecast and were not best prepared.  

Nevertheless, we made the most of it and enjoyed some excellent birding. We spent the morning at Fishbourne Creek.  After lunch, we drove 10 miles inland to West Dean Woods just north of Chichester, for a totally different habitat and a different set of birds.  Thankfully, by then it had stopped raining.

At least 64 species were identified - 42 in the morning and a further 22 (of 29) in the afternoon.

 


The highlight of the morning occurred in the area of the creek adjacent to the sewage works:-

·         In among the large flock of coots was a lone drake red–breasted merganser moving majestically through the water.


 The flight view was equally impressive.

Both images courtesy of Phil Aylen





West Dean Woods


The weather was much better now.  Thankfully the rain had stopped but we were still wet and cold from this morning’s efforts.

We managed to find at least 29 species, including 22 new ones to add to our day list.

 

Raptors were everywhere

·         As usual we were greeted by a red kite soon after we arrived.  Several more were seen later on.



 

·         We also saw a kestrel, a peregrine, a sparrowhawk and lots of buzzards.

·          John and Martin were lucky enough to see a goshawk.

There were an amazing number of finches on show this afternoon.  They were obviously enjoying the improving weather conditions.  Unfortunately they were, in the main, rather distant.–

Mixed finches

·         We had greenfinches, chaffinches and goldfinches ….

 

Greenfinches

·         ….but best of all, bramblings ….

Brambling

·         …. and hawfinches.

Hawfinches

Such was the richness of birding that we were literally stopped in our tracks to take it all in.

·         Martin and Bob R had gone ahead and continued up to Monkton Farm to complete the walk, adding bullfinch and fieldfare to our species list before returning to join us.

 

What an incredible session - dominated by the sightings of hawfinch and brambling!


  2024 species count=205

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