Pulborough Brooks

Carrion Crow preening.

Carrion Crow alert.

Moorhen

Moorhen again.

Okay maybe I lied about getting up to date with the posts but there we go. Right. RSPB reserves and particularly Pulborough Brooks that I went to yesterday. It is a large reserve in the village of Pulborough with wet grassland, ponds, woodland, hedgerows, meadows and marshland. The grassland is managed by grazing cattle and rabbits that keep back the scrub and keep the grass short. There are herds of Fallow deer (does and older fawns at the moment) that roam the place, hundreds of Lapwings (Northern Lapwings, Peewits, call them what you will), many Mallards (males in eclipse are the most numerous at the moment), Shovellers, Pintail, Shelducks, lads of other wildfowl, Goldfinches, tits, Redshank, godwits, Snipe, Carrion Crows and Rooks Moorhens and Coots and all sorts of epic legend including the MARSH HARRIER, one of Britain's RAREST BREEDING BIRDS. No, I didn't get to see a Marsh Harrier but they are there. My highlight therefore was a Hobby chasing dragonflies. There is a fantastic shop where you can try and buy (unexpected rhyme) scopes and binoculars as well as tripods to put them on. There is this big ENOURMOOOOOOOOOOUS thing looking like a pair of giant white binoculars out side the shop that you can look through. You can buy bid food including live mealworms, feeders, nesting-boxes and inevitably the souvenirs like the Singing Bird plush toys that sing that bird's song when you press them. I became a MEMBER OF RSPB PHOENIX (that's the teenagers bit of the RSPB) which is epic. Sorry about the pictures being all wonkaloid. They didn't want to go in the proper places. BYE and make sure you go to one of the RSPB reserves this year. :)

Hobby and a plane.

Hobby over the hedge.

Fallow does.

more Fallow does.