NORTH DOWNS & BEYOND

The RSPB's Pulborough Brooks reserve is just over an hour's drive from me in Banstead, it is always packed with birds and also delivers highly during the summer months with plants and inverts - so why do I visit so infrequently? There is also the small matter of a rather good cafe which always has a fine selection of cakes... so this morning I left the comfort blanket of Surrey and set foot in that most welcoming of counties, Sussex. I was too keen really, arriving at 06.20hrs. Still dark. But as I waited for the light to do its stuff and banish the darkness I was serenaded by a Robin and a couple of Tawny Owls. 07.00hrs found me at Hail's View, overlooking the southern brooks where a good number of duck and Lapwing were putting on a dawn aerial manoeuvre. Do they do this to get their muscles into fine working order after a night of inactivity? Anyhow, a scan of the distant Canada Geese revealed the couple of wintering White-fronts - first 'target' achieved....

You cannot get enough Wheatear - doesn't matter which species, although here in north Surrey anything other than a Northern will not be believed. The smart chap above decided to give the Priest Hill hummocks a miss and perched on a tree instead. He was so happy with life that he even went into a brief burst of sub-song. I was able to stand and watch just a few metres away, and in the end left him alone, still perched on the branch. If I hadn't seen him fly onto it I might have checked that it wasn't limed... The other highlight from this morning was a Common Snipe, flushed from the middle of Big Field. Why this species would choose to alight on a bone dry field on a day of clear blue sky I do not know, but there lies one of the reasons that we carry on birding - we just do not know what the next bird is that we will see. And if it happens to be a Wheatear, then that's fine by me. Want another? Go on then...