RXwildlife Sightings

From the hide this morning
Goldeneye male
Wigeon 200
Smew male and redhead
Bittern 1 flying
and a Marsh Harrier

and this evening 6 drake and 3 redhead Smew.

An early morning walk produced six singing Cetti’s Warblers and a Woodcock. Early afternoon saw two Marsh Harriers over the reedbed. Shelduck have moved back into the valley after a gap of three or four months with upto 14 present.

This bumble bee, photographed at 9 o’clock this morning, was feeding on Lonicera fragrantissima in the garden in the Rother Valley. The ambient temperature was 0 degrees centigrade. It remained feeding for at least thirty minutes. (from Ron Nash)

There were 6 skylark, 8 meadow pipit, and 2 snipe feeding in the fields near Barn Pond, Fairlight Place Farm today. Hopefully the numbers of wintering birds on the farm will increase once the new management gets going.

A barn owl has also been seen regularly over the last couple of weeks in the same fields.

At Castle Water
2 Bittern
1 Marsh Harrier (sub-adult male)
2 Cetti’s Warbler
7 Smew (male)
17 Scaup
13 Little Egret

Along the shore ridges
70 Sanderling
20 Dunlin
10 Grey Plover
250+ Oystercatcher
Ringed Plover, Turnstone

Ternery Pool
70+ Shoveler
6 Snipe

Harbour Farm

200+ Corn Bunting
50+ Linnet
6 Grey Partridge

On Sunday afternoon, west of Guestling Wood, the veteran Red-tailed Hawk was silhouetted in a bare tree at the edge of Kitchen Wood, flying off with harsh, strangled cries.
Cliff Dean

Sunday January 23rd 2005
Ashes Wood, Netherfield
40sp

Song Thrushes dominate the soundscape with Nuthatches now declaring their presence more blatantly.. One of 4 Marsh Tits was in song and a Treecreeper too. Otherwise, the most conspicuous species were Great Tit, Blue Tit, Blackbird & Robin.
A few each of Redpoll and Siskin, but 15 Bullfinches.
At the mill pond, there were 3 nervous Gadwall and a drake Teal with the Mallards.
Yellowhammers have yet to return to their breeding sites in the birch scrub, but there was a pair across the road at Battle Golf Club.
Several groups of Goldfinches, totalling 35, included a flock of 20 feeding on cones of Western Hemlock. Of 6 Goldcrests, 4 were in Western Red Cedar. In spite of newspapers articles assuring us that House Sparrows have all but gone, they seem to be present in little clusters at every farmhouse, however isolated.

From the Netherfield Arms, I could see a Buzzard circling in the distance over Ashburnham, and when I drove over there, I found 2 soaring over Henley’s Bridge.

Cliff Dean

Sunday 23 January

Several Water Rail calling in reedbed with both single Marsh and Hen Harriers hunting overhead. Five Red-legged Partridge are part of a local release.

A female dartford warbler was showing well near the old lookout on the Firehills, Hastings Country Park. Also seen was a raven flying west along the cliff-top.

Today at Dungeness RSPB
Slavonian Grebe (1),
Black-necked Grebe (1),
Bittern (1),
Whooper Swan (7),
Red-crested Pochard (pair),
Smew (4),
Hen Harrier (male),
Dartford Warbler (1),
Firecrest (3)