Nightingales

Steyning Downland Scheme birdwatch group set off this morning at 6:30am very hopeful that we would hear a nightingale.  A couple had heard one singing loudly on Friday night at about 10:30pm near the ponds where one took up residence last spring.  So we were delighted to hear another on the path near the entrance to the south side of the rifle range, where we had not heard one before.  Not only that, we got very good views of it too.  It was perched in the top of a hawthorn which was not fully out in leaf and we all had good views of it, a real treat as this is a bird that is much more often heard than seen.   One team also reported hearing one in the expected place by the ponds, too.  The wide, scrubby hedgerow that runs up by the path may be developing into suitable nightingale nesting habitat, but somehow I doubt it.  Nonetheless, we will all be listening out for it in the weeks to come.

Steyning Coombe area seemed very quiet.  It is an area that promises much, but often delivers little when it comes to birds.  There was a noticeable lack of nuthatches and treecreepers in the woodland areas, but great spotted and green woodpeckers were drumming and yaffling all round.   The south side of the rifle range was busy with at least two pairs each of yellowhammers and linnets and a very confiding chiffchaff. Other groups reported hearing willow warblers, whitethroat and marsh tit, but we did not.  A wonderful spring morning with the sight and sound of the nightingale more than making up for the other things we missed.  

Swifts, Slow-worms and Nightingales

I had to take sharp evasive action this morning to avoid running over a slow-worm which was sunning itself in the track and almost fell off my bike. It had the rather stumpy appearance of one that has lost its tail earlier in its life, so perhaps it makes a habit of sunning itself in the path of oncoming cyclists. It slithered off before I could get my camera out, so here is a picture of one I encountered last year.

Apart from close encounters with slow-worms on the track,one of the great advantages of cycling, especially at this time of the year is that you hear the birdsong, which you miss out on entirely when driving. It has been a good year for nightingales so far, at least it has been for me. I heard two more today bringing my total to eight. They were calling in some scrub by the roadside near Wineham and I was lucky enough to hear them as I cycled past. I caught a very brief glimpse of one of them, which is all you usually get and it took me quite a while to work out how many there were. It can be difficult to tell where the sound is coming from and there were blackbirds, chaffinches, blackcap warblers, a wren and a willow warbler all calling at the same time; very confusing, but in the end I was sure there were two of them, presumably competing for ownership of a fairly small area of scrub.

I saw my first swifts today; about half a dozen of them swooping over the Adur levels. They are the last of the common summer visitors, so their arrival is by way of a minor turning point in the year.