Late Breeding Bird Survey - North West Zone

Thursday June 19th

Solar Panel Field, North West Zone

It was a warm and hazy start to the morning when Laurie, Tom F. and I began our first birding transect, along the canalised section of the River Mole.

The sun beating down on a dirt track felt positively Mediterranean

In the riverside vegetation we picked up songs of Reed Warbler, Reed Bunting, Common Whitethroat and Wren. A lone Skylark was singing its head off by the airfield boundary, but in contrast the hedgerows were all pretty quiet.

Web of a large Orb-weaver spider...

Belonging to this lovely lady; a Furrow Spider (Larinioides cornutus)

Around the corner where the river begins to meander, we picked up the first confirmed breeding bird signs; fluffy Reed Warbler fledglings perched low-down in the Willows. 

Photo taken through my binoculars... As good as it gets!

In the scrub to the west of Brockley Wood, Blue Tits were in good numbers along with Chiffchaff, Common Whitethroat and a noisy pair of Linnets. Groups of fledgling Goldfinch were fluttering about, seemingly having a successful year. The northern part of Brockley Wood was busy with Jackdaws, Jay, Song Thrush and some unseen, uncharacteristically loud Bullfinches. 

Scrub West of Brockley

By the time we began the 2nd transect, the sun had burned off all the mist. The further along the River we travelled, the harder going the walk and the more insignificant we felt in the towering grasses... 

Riverside jungle

Ragged Robin (Lychnis flos-cuculi) and dense clumps of Hedge Bedstraw (Galium mollugo)

Into the 2nd transect, we picked up Long-tailed Tit, Coal Tit, Nuthatch, Carrion Crow and several Barn Swallows.

Large Black Slug (Arion spp.) 

The big hole in its side is the respiratory opening, called a pneumostome 

We were noticing lots of these funnel-like webs about the place...

Belonging to the Labyrinth Spider (Agelena labyrinthica) of Springwatch fame

There was an exciting moment when I thought I heard one of these...

But on second thought, it was actually one of these...

In my defense, it was quite far off in the distance.

Greenfinch and Garden Warbler cropped up toward the end of the 2nd transect, where the bordering areas become more residential. We got a good view of perching Ring-necked Parakeets. Sadly no Kingfishers today, but we saw lots of lovely damselflies including Common Blue, Banded Demoiselle and a female Broad-bodied Chaser Dragonfly.

We recorded a good number of fledglings today, which is all evidence of successful breeding. The final count was 33 species which is our usual total for this time of year:

1	Blackbird	Turdus merula
2	Blackcap	Sylvia atricapilla
3	Blue Tit	Cyanistes caeruleus
4	Bullfinch	Pyrrhula pyrrhula
5	Carrion Crow	Corvus corone
6	Chiffchaff	Phylloscopus collybita
7	Dunnock	Prunella modularis
8	Garden Warbler	Sylvia borin
9	Goldfinch	Carduelis carduelis
10	Great Spotted Woodpecker	Dendrocopos major
11	Great Tit	Parus major
12	Green Woodpecker	Picus viridis
13	Greenfinch	Carduelis chloris
14	Jackdaw	Corvus monedula
15	Jay	Garrulus glandarius
16	Linnet	Carduelis cannabina
17	Long-tailed Tit	Aegithalos caudatus
18	Magpie	Pica pica
19	Moorhen	Gallinula chloropus
20	Nuthatch	Sitta europaea
21	Pied Wagtail	Motacilla alba subsp. yarrellii
22	Reed Bunting	Emberiza schoeniclus
23	Reed Warbler	Acrocephalus scirpaceus
24	Ring-necked Parakeet	Psittacula krameri
25	Robin	Erithacus rubecula
26	Skylark	Alauda arvensis
27	Song Thrush	Turdus philomelos
28	Stock Dove	Columba oenas
29	Swallow	Hirundo rustica
30	Swift	Apus apus
31	Whitethroat	Sylvia communis
32	Woodpigeon	Columba palumbus
33	Wren	Troglodytes troglodytes

Mr Forward also shouted me a surprise birthday breakfast... a sweet start to the day!

Temperamental Mole

Ecological consultant Rebecca, taking water samples under the netted section of the River Mole

A tributary of the River Thames, the River Mole rises just south of Rusper village in West Sussex, flowing north-west for 50 miles (80km) before reaching the Thames at the north Surrey border.

At Gatwick our section of the River Mole is rather open and slow-flowing, passing under the airfield through a tunnel and exiting on the north side. At the southern point where it enters, a Kingfisher is regularly spotted zipping in and out.
   The course of the Mole has been altered several times since the airport began operating commercially in 1945. During a massive flood alleviation project in 1999 it was diverted once more from its course north of the airfield; now it travels west for 400m parallel to the taxiway before meandering in a north-easterly direction. With a good diversity of riffle formations, pool sequences, backwaters, lush wet grassland and reedbeds, it is in my opinion quite a lovely and natural-looking section of river.

The River Mole on Gatwick's Landholdings, north of the airfield

Vantage point from the grassy mound, overlooking the airfield - NWZ

Reedbeds in winter

The water level at Povey Cross has reached level 2 (my cunning theory is that the numbers represent 10cm, putting the water level at 1.2m.) In the past I have seen the water close to over-topping the stick.

Much of the catchment area of the Mole lies on impermeable rock, meaning that the water level responds extremely rapidly to heavy rainfall. My first week of surveying at Gatwick taught me a punitive lesson… a few of my reptile mats have probably washed up somewhere in Surrey.

Rebecca kicking the silt and netting the river-dwelling invertebrates

The water quality of the river can also fluctuate greatly depending on the season. The ecologists Rebecca and Victoria from Penny Anderson Associates regularly carry out aquatic invertebrate 'kick surveys', taking samples back to the lab for species identification under the microscope. Identifying the flora and fauna occurring in the waterways is particularly useful, as certain species are very sensitive to pollution and could act as indicators of any negative impacts of the airport's operations. On Monday they visited Gatwick and I was able to join in to see how it is done.

Damselfly nymph covered in silt - possibly a Banded Demoiselle?

Common Backswimmer (Notonecta glauca)

Diving beetle species

A small leech

Freshwater Shrimp (Gammarus pulex) is a type of amphipod crustacean

An Orb Mussel, a type of freshwater mollusc

I particularly enjoy this time of year when the Reed Warblers set up their territories all along the Mole. If you happen to wander west along the public right of way from Povey Cross you can hear their repetitive, mechanical sounding song...

I took this photo of a Reed Warbler along the Mole last summer -

 possibly my best birding photo so far!

And finally, one of the mystery coconuts which wash up regularly along the River Mole... No explanations have sufficed so far, but it gives me a hankering for lime and a tiny little umbrella.