December 2014
Well, October did bring some thunder storms, but thankfully no great disasters. Uckfield High Street flooded, but this was apparently due to surface runoff in excess of the capacity of the drains to cope. Let’s hope the new improvements will deal with that.
November is still remaining mild, with showers and sunny intervals. Most of the leaves have fallen from the deciduous trees, with the exception of oak, alder and some beech (recorded mid-November). Most of the summer migrant birds have gone and the winter migrants have arrived. Interestingly, there are probably more birds visiting us in the winter than the summer. Our winter visitors include redwings, fieldfares, extra blackbirds and song thrushes (all from Scandinavia). Polish blackcaps. Also arriving are purple and green sandpipers, turnstones, curlews, grey plovers, dunlin, knot, wigeon, teal, gadwall, pochard, Brent geese, hooper and Bewick’s swans, merlin, short-eared owls, great grey shrikes (occasionally), hen harriers, and many more. However, their presence is more subtle than the summer visitors as they are not breeding or singing and because it is dark much of the time, we do not often see them. However, if you were to visit the mudflats of Pagham and Chichester Harbours at low tide, with the help of binoculars and a spotting telescope, you will see many of the waders and geese in the list. The ducks will be at Pulborough Brooks, the short-eared owls at Lewes Brooks, the redwings and fieldfares can commonly be seen in the fields around Isfield, the great-grey shrike often visits Ashdown Forest, as does the hen harrier which also likes the South Downs. They come for mild weather and abundance of food.
Most of these birds migrate at night, and sometimes call to each other in order to help keep together and navigate. The redwings are particularly vocal and call with a subtle high pitched seep as they fly overhead. Redwings and fieldfares are species of thrush related to blackbirds, song and mistle thrushes. Also in the thrush family are stonechats, nightingales, wheatears and robins. There is a rare relative called the ring ouzel which is like a blackbird with a white bib. These birds usually live on the slopes of mountains in places such as Wales, the Pennines, Lake District and Scotland. However, during the winter they can occasionally be found on the Fire Hills of Fairlight.