CROYDON RSPB MEMBERS' GROUP - TRIP REPORT

Any casual motorist discovering the sheltered little carpark that serves the Sussex Wildlife Trust reserve on the shore of the Bewl Water Reservoir is likely to be lost - it is truly off the beaten track by Home Counties' standards. Nevertheless, our party managed to assemble there without loss and were soon enjoying some sunshine, a rare pleasure lately! The trees and bushes around the carpark often hold interesting parties of small birds but today were rather quiet, with just one song thrush and a goldcrest showing, nothing to detain the female sparrowhawk that dashed through as we were putting on our boots. For most of us there were few birds during the walk down to the reservoir either, although one lucky backmarker checking a trackside field was rewarded with brief flight views of a flock of bramblings.

At the reservoir, good numbers of both great crested and little grebes were out on the open water, but the morning was rather windy and many of the wildfowl present were sheltering in the lee of distant banks. Numerous tufted ducks and pochard, together with a few mallard, gadwall and wigeon, were easily identified, while several indistinct shapes partly hidden under overhanging bushes may have belonged to teal and another looked rather like a pintail. After a thorough scan from the hide, we squelched along a path northwards for a few hunded yards to view an inlet where lots of coots and some Canada geese were present. A single lapwing was resting on the shoreline here and many more were feeding with starlings in a ploughed field on the ridge beyond. The water level in the reservoir was very high after so much recent rainfall and the swathes of scentless mayweed that had surprised us by being in full bloom during a December visit in 1999 were now almost completely submerged.

Before taking lunch, we drove the eight miles to the day's second site, Bedgebury Pinetum. For the first half hour of our tour there, avian activity was very limited and we even had time to study some of the unusual conifers in the collection. Eventually birds did begin to show, starting with a pair of goldcrests that seemed quite happy to linger almost within touching distance. Next to appear were a pair of nuthatches, followed by a flock of fifteen siskins. Coal, blue and great tits (as well as the inevitable grey squirrel) had rediscovered the feeders at the bird hide among the rhododendrons, although these had only recently been refilled for the winter. Returning to more open areas, we noted that finches were beginning to arrive and so began our search for the target bird on all winter visits to Bedgebury. Although we had several false alarms involving distant chaffinches and greenfinches, it wasn't long before we found our first hawfinch, perched at quite close range in exposed bare twigs topping a clump of cypresses. This bird was soon to be joined by two others and stayed put to give us good views over a period of at least fifteen minutes. It remains a mystery why hawfinches at Bedgebury are prepared to sit out in the open, ignoring birders and passing strollers with dogs and children, when they are so incredibly shy at practically all other sites! A small flock of mistle thrushes, a green woodpecker and a redpoll among more siskins also attracted attention before we returned to the carpark ahead of the 1600 hrs lockup. As the light faded, a flock of fieldfares passed over, giving most of us our first sighting of that species this winter.