Birds aren’t the only things flying in January; there are a few moths too. Today I trapped two Pale Brindled Beauties at Rye, one melanic (monacharia) and one the normal form. Both are males, as the females are wingless. Melanics were unknown in East Sussex until the 1960s but now comprise up to 5% of the population.
Highlights over the past few days have included four white-fronted geese and two drake goosanders on Burrowes pit and five smew (including one drake) on New Excavations. The long-tailed duck is stiil around as are at least two great white egrets and numerous goldeneyes. Two firecrests were seen near Denge Marsh hide on 14th and a goldcrest was in Christmas Dell yesterday.
At Rye Harbour Nature Reserve the main threat to ground nesting birds is predation from fox and badger, so we try to exclude them with fences. Some of the fences end at ditches and we extend these out into deep water. But it seems this is not keeping out all the badgers! In this video one is swimming around the end of the fence, so we will have to extend it soon.
Elsewhere the new saltmarsh is currently being fortified with extra wire mesh clipped to the bottom of the fence to deter fox and badger digging underneath and we are hoping this will lead to a bumper crop of young redshank and lapwing in the spring.
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The most impressive sight this morning was a flock of around 2000 Razorbills feeding close inshore of the fishing boats along with some 400 Guillemots and at least 500 Great Crested Grebes. A Velvet Scoter made several passes offshore during the day and an immature Pomarine Skua was seen in the afternoon. A few Brent Geese also flew east and an Eider and two Red-breasted Mergansers were of interest. The first-winter Caspian Gull showed very well again and the second-winter Glaucous Gull was also seen.
Highlights at Rye Harbour over the last few days have included, on the Beach Reserve, Spotted Redshank and Merlin, and on Harbour Farm at least five Goldeneye (including one or two males) and three Bearded Tit in front of Watch Cottages. At Castle Water, highlights were six Black-tailed Godwit, five Ruff, three Marsh Harrier, three Red-crested Pochard (two males), at least two Bittern and a Barn Owl.
Red-crested Pochard
There are hundreds of kilometres of ditches in the RX area and they contain many rare and endangered species. So you might be interested in the work of Buglife who have a whole web section devoted to this habitat, including some work done in the RX area. Click here to find out more.
Among c.80 Canada Geese and c.70 Greylags this morning, I counted 11 Dark-bellied Brents, 12 White-fronts, 4 Pinkfeet and the Bar-headed Goose that’s been going around with the Canadas this winter. The pools held a drake Pintail and 2 drake Ruddy Ducks, and a huge flock of scoter on the sea included a few Velvets with 7 more Velvets coming past. About 25 Red-throated Divers passed by, some landing on the sea, plus 2 Razorbills and a Guillemot, and single Gannet and Bonxie were reported.
Highlights over the last couple of days have included, at Castle Water, two Bittern, two Marsh Harrier, six Black-tailed Godwit, five Ruff and a pair of Pintail, while best of the bunch today were at least two Merlin on Harbour Farm, the Spotted Redshank on Ternery Pool and a Bar-tailed Godwit on Flat Beach Level.
Merlin
The Sussex Wildlife Trust runs a wide range of wildlife courses throughout the year that can be viewed by clicking here.
Very tame and inquisitive Razorbill swam up to within 4 metres of my surf board 200 metres off Galley Hill Common today (07/01/12).