A wildlife-filled weekend!

Unfortunately its the end of the holidays and this weekend I made the most of the nice weather and went bird ringing as well as visiting RSPB Pulborough Brooks.

It was a 4:45 start on Saturday, arriving at Cissbury Ring as the sun was rising on the horizon. On the walk down past the fields a male yellowhammer sang loudly from the top of the hedgerow and numerous skylarks blurted out their song all around me. The thick fog magically seemed to clear as I arrived at the ringing site.


It was quiet bird wise, catching only 20 birds, including chiffchaffs, blackcaps, wrens, bullfinch and a willow warbler which was nice as I hadn't seen one yet this year. 

Willow warbler in the hand

After hearing 8 ring ouzels had been reported at cissbury ring I decided to have a quick look on the walk back to the car. Luckily enough within 5 minutes I spotted 4 of them close together, hopping around and reappearing above the mounds as they were feeding. Surprisingly I had never seen a ring ouzel before so it was a lifer!

The bird in the centre of the photo! (taken through my binoculars)

This morning I went to RSPB Pulborough Brooks. Walking out of the visitor centre the first species I saw was a couple of red-legged partridge followed by a flock of linnet and a fly-by of a green woodpecker. Down at the first hide I managed to see the great white egret, my first for this year. It was quite a distance away but it was still good to see it strutting back and forth on the water!

Great white egret

Also on the main stretch of water on the north brooks were a pair of avocet, wigeon, teal, shoveler, little egret, grey heron and a very distant whimbrel. 

Pair of avocet (through my scope)
Walking around the reserve the birds were in full song especially blackcaps and this robin!

Robin
On the way back my mum saw something moving in the undergrowth so we stopped, waiting to see if it would make another appearance. Appearing out of what looked like a badger den, was a stoat! It was hard to get a photograph through the twigs and brambles but I did manage this one.

Stoat







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