RXwildlife Sightings

The Marsham Valley, between the Pett ridge and Fairlight, is a mosaic of coppiced woodland, sheep grazing, a bit of arable and a lot of horsiculture. The fields and narrow lanes are defined with hedges, punctuated with oaks.

On my first Winter Atlas survey this morning, the woods were populated with roving tit bands, including a few Marsh Tits, and followed by Nuthatches (more than there used to be), Treecreepers and Goldcrests.

Blackbirds were feeding on berries in the tall Holly hedges (where there was also a Chiffchaff) and Song Thrushes confined to a couple of large Yews in Rosemary Lane.

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The male goosander was still on the ARC pit, along with a caspian gull and a spoonbill, most likely that same bird that was present towards the end of October, making a reappearance. If however,this bird is an adult, this is clearly not the case! Good numbers of snipe have also been seen with at least 60 birds present on the ARC pit during the week. A green sandpiper flew over calling and the bittern was seen again in flight from the viewing ramp at Hookers pits, fingers crossed for tomorrows bittern safari! Good numbers of finches were passing over during the morning with at least 180 chaffinches, 23 greenfinches, 68 siskins, 27 bramblings and 5 redpolls. A coal tit was at the top of the entrance track around Boulderwall farm.          

As you drive to the lighthouses you pass a remarkably discrete forty year old oak tree, a metre or two from the inland side of the road on Dungeness. Its only about 1m high, due to the pressures of growing on the harsh shingle environment. Branches get scorched by salt-laden winds, and leaves devoured by the voracious brown-tailed moth. As a result the multiple stems grow sideways across the shingle rather than upwards, although they do not spread out as far as you would expect for a tree of that age. This is a phenomenon that affects a range of scrub and tree species on this site.

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A fine display of Sulphur Tuft (Hypholoma fasiculare) can now be found along the beach road near the footpath to Parkes Hide. The fungi would not be there if it were not for the rotting railway sleepers buried beneath the shingle which formed the track to the quarry in the early 1980’s.

The mild wet weather at the start of this week has triggered an early wave of amphibian migration to their breeding ponds. The first smooth newt of the season was seen in our Northiam pond tonight. As a child in the north of England this used to spring-time observation. It is quite normal in recent years to see these animals starting to turn up in ponds in November in East Sussex. There was also a marked immigration of common frogs into the pond.