Mole Valley Bird Race 2014

What's that? Not had enough sleep? Pulled a tendon from so much walking? It's a Bank Holiday weekend? Never mind eh, let's have a bird race!

Gatwick Greenspace Goshawks

A bird race is when teams of slightly odd, but mostly alright people run around the countryside, identifying as many bird species as possible in 24 hours. This event was organised by Viewpoint Outdoor in aid of the Gatwick Greenspace Youth Rangers, to promote this fantastic group and to raise money towards their equipment costs.

Four crack-teams went head to head for this challenge. The tradition is to name your team after a bird, so we were the Gatwick Greenspace Goshawks. As we are all Sussex-based and interlopers into Surrey, this was mostly unknown territory for us.

Introducing our team...

Tom 'Caffeine-power' Foward

Tom 'pretend map reader' Simpson

Laurie 'What do you mean, I'm competitive?' Jackson

James 'Let's have a nice sit-down. Ooh look, a pub...' Chapman

And last but not least, Rachel 'Can I sleep now?' Bicker

These were the basic rules:

• The Race officially started at 0.00am, on Sunday 25th May 2014.
• Sightings submitted by 20:00 at Leith Hill Place.
• Teams can consist of 2-6 people.
• A bird species cannot be claimed as seen or heard if it was not verified by at least two members of the team.
• No domestic exotic pet birds or “obvious escapes” may be counted.
• The use of playback and lamping of birds is prohibited.

Start: Newdigate Brickworks

We began just over the border at the Newdigate Wildlife Trust reserve, making sure we got the obligatory group photo... 

#Twitter-tarts

We had a pretty intense start with everyone calling species out as soon as we arrived: Canada Goose, Moorhen, House Sparrow, Nuthatch, Song Thrush, Common Whitethroat, House Martin. A sudden burst of loud, incessant piping gave away a Kingfisher. We checked the woodland clearings carefully, trying to drum up an elusive Spotted Flycatcher, but sadly no luck there.

Newdigate Brickworks lake

After some time, we were also rewarded with a couple of difficult-to-tick species; a singing Bullfinch and a lone, soaring Red Kite. We left the site at 38 species and in good spirits.

A quick coffee break

Hammonds Copse and Ewood Farm:

We had a muddy trek through the woodlands...

Firecrest? Or just a Goldcrest....

On the way to the farmlands we ticked Goldcrest, Pheasant, Tree Creeper and Greenfinch.

Yet another bloomin' Red Kite! At first we tried convince ourselves it was a Common Buzzard (yet to be ticked), but to no avail.

   The tantalising, distant call of a Yellow Hammer had us all straining our ears. Then, as a group of cyclists meandered past us, something popped out on the path....

Yellow Hammer (If you were expecting good birding photos, you will be sorely disappointed).

Other species we mopped up here were Barn Swallow, Linnet and a group of Lesser Black-backed Gulls. Futilely, we spent some time with Tom F's scope, trying to turn a distant Carrion Crow into a Rook. It stayed a Crow. Finally, a cheeky Pied Wagtail made an appearance on one of the farm buildings.

Lost satellite reception. Recalculating

Once we had finally made it out of Ewood, it was on to Capel:

Our first Cuckoo of the day popped up here with its unmistakable call. They are only brief summer visitors and will soon be hitting the road back to warmer climes.
A non-birding interlude...

Fat-legged Beetle (Oedemera nobilis) male

Longhorn Moth (Nemophora degeerella)

A type of orchid...

Heads back in the game!
Another bloomin' Red Kite soared overhead, doing its best to make sure all other birds of prey stayed well away from us.

Soon after, a couple of Nightingales, invisible in the scrub, treated us to snippets of their song. A lone Reed Warbler also piped up in a pond screened by hedgerows.

There was a a conspicuous silence from the Lesser Whitethroat, despite the lovely, welcoming scrubby habitat. No matter though, as we had hit 50 species!

Moments after this, there was a loud clatter and an emergency stop; a pair of binoculars left on the car roof had luckily jammed in the roof rack. 

   On hearing about Dave Stubbs' team being over the 60 species mark, we started getting desperate (and lazy) for ticks....

Brockham:

We pretty much drove up to the first bridge we found by the River Mole to look for a Grey Wagtail... and by jove, we got one!

I didn't get a photo of a Grey Wagtail, so here's Laurie instead

Some more bad news from the Twittersphere...

...They nabbed our Spotted Flycatcher!

Buckland Sandpits:

It was time to step up the effort, so here the scope came back into play. We ticked Willow Warbler and a lone Little Grebe, aka 'Dabchick', which was on the water.

Getting only a couple of ticks at each location begins to take its toll on morale. This was where the term 'law of diminishing returns' really started to kick in.

Headley Heath:

This site provided a good mixture of both heathland and chalk grassland, so surely we could turn up some interesting species here...

A distant Marsh Tit called, but everything else was just the already-ticked warblers: Blackcap, Willow Warbler and Common Whitethroat.

Another non-birding interlude...

This male Brown Argus Butterfly cracking on to a female Grizzled Skipper. Silly.

Wild Strawberry and Germander Speedwell

Green Hairstreak Butterfly

By now, my contact lenses were making my eyes feel like they were about to pop out. So, with no more lenses and without any specs, I resigned as a look-out. A group of Swifts were swooping high above the pines; Tom S. and Laurie were then both lucky enough to catch a glimpse of an elusive Hobby as it shot over head, pursuing its Swift prey!

   The day was drawing on and we had a long overdue pub stop to work out some tactics. We had only a couple of hours left, it was then that we heard the other 3 teams had all topped 70 species.

Hysteria?

Once again it was back on the road, with little time left we headed to some fishing lakes for more wetland stuff.

Walking yet another woodland path to some distant ponds

 ...which had nothing on them

Time (and energy) was now really running short, so it was up to Leith Hill to at least try to pick up a few more heathland species.

Birding from the ground

Amazing views...

The silent summer

We got sweet nuthin'! Our last bird was the Hobby at around 5pm and we'd had no new species in over 2 hours.

   We made it back to Leith Hill Place just in time to submit the results (by my watch it was more like 20:05 but no one seemed to notice). All the groups had arrived back and were tucking into some much needed food and caffeinated beverages.

And the results are in... 

We lost... And pretty badly, too!!

Dave Stubbs and his team came in at the top with 83 species, a full 20 species more than us! The two other teams came in at 74 and 75 species.

Collectively we recorded 89 species of bird, not bad for a land-locked county!

Well done to all! Though I'll just mention again that only our team got a Hobby. 

Somehow, GGP Goshawks were not quite 'all-birded-out', so we headed back out onto the heath at dusk. We were rewarded with a Woodcock which flew over head, squeaking loudly. Also, the beautiful and bizaare sound of European Nightjar, their strange silouettes flitting from tree to tree... 

We'll be back next year, and it's going to get tactical!!

Roving Records: Un-bee-lievable find in the North West Zone (20/05/2014)

Overlapping ecology surveys and a good dose of sleep deprivation means I'm a bit behind in blogging!

 North West Zone aerial map

After a morning newt-surveying at the Nursery ponds (which turned up only 2 adult Great Crested Newts), mum and I headed off to check on the reptile mats. Just as we arrived, the weather switched from warm and sunny to cloudy and blustery. These rubbishy, changeable conditions have been standard this past month; frustrating when looking out for winged invertebrates. This is what we turned up...

Mother Shipton Moth (Callistege mi), named after a 16th century soothsayer-witch

Long-jawed Orb-weaver Spider (Tetragnatha extensa)

Glow Worm larva (Lampyris noctiluca). Actually a type of beetle and close to pupating

Black Clock or Necklace Ground Beetle (Pterostichus madidus), munching on a caterpillar

While checking the reptile refugia in the scrubby areas for any of our scaley guests, I realised that a couple of mats had gone missing... Subsequently, I've heard they were used as props under the wheels of a Land Rover which had got stuck in some mud nearby. I'm pretty confident that action would have failed and that our Grass Snakes would have benefited from them more!

Reptile refugia (roofing felt mat) - not for un-sticking trucks

So, at the end of a slightly truncated survey, we turned up three Grass Snakes: two less than 20cm long and a 1 meter, camera-shy individual. Its head was buried right down into its coils, in a case of I-can't-see-you you-can't-see-me.

Grass Snake (Natrix natrix)

We also noticed this lovely little plant growing near to the dry grassy slope...

Shepherd's Purse (Capsella bursa-pastoris) seed pods

Shepherd's Purse (Capsella bursa-pastoris) flowers

After completing the reptile transect, I decided to loop around the clay slope one more time, just in case we could turn up something interesting. Jeremy Early advised me to keep an eye on this area on sunny days, as solitary bees and wasps could be taking up residence in it.

Winged insects, such as Butterflies and Damselflies, like to disappear from view as clouds pass over, then will suddenly reappear with the sun. Reaching the top of the slope, the fickle British sun popped out again and suddenly, small flying things were busily buzzing about. Frustratingly, my netting skills were lacking and I was entirely absorbed while ignoring Mum's incessant calls...

Until I heard that magic word: 'Bees!!'

But this ain't just any type of Bee. Oh no my friend.

Long-horned Bee (Eucera longicornis) males

This is is the Long-horned Bee, Eucera longicornis; a very scarce species in Britain and we did not only find one, but a small community! Their antennae are extraordinarily long which makes them very distinctive, and laughably cute like little cartoon characters. 

NBN Gateway Distribution

BWARs Website

As you can see from the above map, their distribution is very limited and there are very few records since 2000. The designation for this species is Nationally Notable A, which means rare and scarce. It is also UK BAP priority species, meaning it needs some conservation action to help it out, so we will be updating our Biodiversity Action Plan with some new targets! 

Look at that face!! I think they look like some kind of Pokemon

Judging from Jeremy's excitement (that would be very excited indeed), this is one of the best species to have stumbled across in our fair isles. It loves high quality, flower rich grasslands for foraging and clay areas for nesting, which we have in abundance along the sculpted River Mole floodplain. We counted at least 10 of these little guys, possibly even more buzzing around the wildflowers below the clay slope. They will be nectar feeding on the plentiful vetches, meadow vetchling, clover and trefoils.

Difficult to snap as they were eagerly chasing each other around, as well as any poor, unsuspecting Damselflies and Butterflies

My photos don't do this gorgeous little beastie much justice, so here are a couple of Jeremy's which were taken in the past few weeks over at another site...

Long-horned Bee (Eucera longicornis) male. Photo by Jeremy Early

Long-horned Bee (Eucera longicornis) male. Photo by Jeremy Early

Once this annoying weather starts behaving again, I'll be back up on that slope trying to spot our first female!