Sussex Scrapbook
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Nature walks throughout the year
Saturday 3rd March 2007
Pulborough Brooks
We managed to get to the Brooks for dawn this morning and it was well
worth all the abuse I had to go through to get Gill up and out of the house by
5.45am. By the time she had woken up completely we were in the pouring rain up
to our knees in mud. I know how to keep a girl happy, oh yes!
Anyway, the day turned out to be a total success; the sun came out, we saw 50
species of birds, we had magnificent views of a peregrine, we saw a barn owl and
also glimpsed a weasel crossing the path in front of us. Another surprise was a
red admiral butterfly that had been lured out of hibernation by the warm
weather.
The brooks are completely full of water now and areas that we have never even
seen wet are now looking like lakes. There are a huge number of birds living
there and lots of predators are making the most of it. We saw buzzards and
sparrowhawks as well as the peregrine.
The brooks are wetter now than we have ever seen them and
they are teeming with life.
Here's the peregrine sitting in the tree at The Hanger. We watched it for
over 45 minutes as it preened itself.
You can watch it
here.
Although it rained all around us, we stayed dry after the
initial shower as we arrived.
The barn owl hunting along the other side of the river.
I also managed to get a few (blurry) pictures of last nights total lunar eclipse . It was such a clear night that everyone got fantastic views of the whole thing. The colours were really clear and the whole moon was completely red at totality.
