CROYDON RSPB MEMBERS' GROUP - TRIP REPORT

As neither of the two main target species for this midsummer outing is usually active much before twilight, this was an evening-only session, assembling at Weir Wood at 6 pm. The water level in the reservoir was much higher than in previous years, submerging the muddy margins where various waders and crakes have been found in the past. The most obvious birds out on the water on this occasion were great crested grebes, including an adult attended by a couple of youngsters, still down-covered but already showing the characteristic head stripes. Two common terns were perching for a while on the corner posts of a floating wooden raft, but we could see no evidence that they were nesting there. A female mandarin duck was also sitting on the raft, rather unremarkable in appearance and easily overlooked - very different to the extravagantly-plumaged male. The latest Sussex Bird Report informs us that a new heronry, comprising five nests in 1998, has recently become established at Weir Wood, reflecting a general increase in the population of grey herons following a run of rather mild winters. One of the nests was just visible to us amongst the dense foliage of the trees fringing the shore opposite the viewing point. Two herons were in the branches alongside the nest and up to ten more were distributed about the margins of the reservoir. Typical farmland and woodland birds heard or seen in the trees and bushes surrrounding the viewpoint included song thrush, chiffchaff, blackcap, long-tailed tit, goldfinch and reed bunting.

After an hour or so at Weir Wood we drove the few miles to our second site, in Ashdown Forest, not far south of Wych Cross. Here we began by checking trees and mature hedgerows surrounding a horse paddock and after a few minutes searching managed to locate a couple of spotted flycatchers, no longer any easy species to find in the southeast. We then explored heathland and scattered mixed wooodland patches either side of the A275 road, encountering some of the special birds of this habitat, including a tree pipit, a family of stonechats, noisy redpolls overflying in ones and twos and a number of yellowhammers, the latter heard frequently but seen only once. The daylight had barely begun to fade when the first woodcock, one of our two particular target species for the outing, made an appearance over a line of trees in the middle distance. We were to have perhaps a dozen sightings of these unusual waders during the remainder of the evening as they went about their so-called 'roding' - quartering their territories using a strange, jerky, almost bat-like, flight action. Several times we saw two of them flying together, whether in competition or cooperation we could not tell, and uttering high-pitched squeaks which seemed unusually audible. (By contrast, we scarcely heard the more usual low-pitched grunting call).

As the setting sun turned the clouds deep red, we took up position on a grassy ride to watch over a strip of heathland beside a woodland edge. Nightjars had been active here during the leader's recce earlier in the month but, although weather conditions appeared reasonable, our luck was out and not even the churring calls were heard, neither here nor at a second usually well-favoured area nearby. We could only speculate that the birds' silence and lack of visible activity might be linked to a particular stage of their breeding cycle (eg Birds of the Western Palearctic suggests that males may temporarily cease churring when eggs hatch).