Life in the Freezer

RSPB Pulborough Brooks

A feeble sun, risen barely above the horizon casts long shadows on hard frozen ground. On the south part of the brooks, in the lee of the wind there is such silence that every sound is amplified; from the blackbirds turning over leaves under almost ever hedgerow to the sound of the stoat tip-toeing along the bank of a frosty ditch.  I feel like I am the only person here.

A solitary cloud breaks up the endless ice blue of the sky, moving meekly along above a threadbare willow that creaks lazily in a gentle breeze. The ground is concrete hard, and most of the flooded meadows have succumbed to Jack Frost. Lapwings, driven from the water's edges, forage busily  in fields for insects, mingling with flocks of nervous wigeon, arrived from Russia, to whom the temperatures must seem positively balmy. Two snipe hunker down in a nearby ditch, before a tiff send one shuffling unhappily off to a less favourable spot. A shoveler looks on from the water's edge, unmoved.

Behind a hedgerow a large herd of black fallow deer gather, some lazy with sleep, others jumpy. I move downwind of them, and away from a chattering group of birders. As I expected the deer are driven further along and closer to me, so close I can see the long lashes of a doe above sad looking eyes. We watch each other for quite some time, before a far away dog barks and the startled herd flee away to the north. 

A goldcrest fusses acrobatically about the willows, watched by a curious squirrel. Somewhere nearby another calls, and then another. While the goldcrest flits from branch to branch a treecreeper, white breast flashing in the dappled light, contents himself with the grubs that have moved into the light on the trunk. 


Even the larger meadows are given over almost in their totality to ice, a freeze that seems to have happened so suddenly that ripples have frozen into the surface of the water. Far away a flock of greylag geese, with a few white fronted geese secreted among feed contentedly, ignoring the presence of a juvenile peregrine tiercel who preens himself on a molehill. There are few waterfowl for him to drive up, a solitary shelduck huddles up on a frosty bank, an injured wing folded awkwardly across his back. 



Everywhere groups of tits flit back and forth between trees, coal, blue, great and long tailed are much in evidence; as are numerous house sparrows. 

Above the fields to the north east a kestrel hunts, now hovering, now swooping, circling and hovering again.


On the path leading back south a cacophony of cackles erupt from a flock of fidgety crows, and the falcon peregrine is driven up and away at great speed; arcing round in a loop she flips upside down, a flash of black and white streaked underbelly, yellow talons as sharp as daggers lash out and she is gone behind the tree line. 






Breath forms clouds in the air, and the chill works its way into the bones. The cafe's bread pudding and warmth calls me inside.
 

The Burgh

Wisps of cloud like strands of a wise sage's hair hang loosely across a powder blue sky, as the river Arun glitters below like a necklace of silver. The chill of the winter morning has been usurped by an afternoon snatched from spring. 

Peppering Farm stands in splendid isolation above Burpham, secreted in a hollow in centre of the South Downs. Time stands still here where the roads ends, wide field margins and thick hedgerows sing with life, and below Arundel castle is cradled in the nook of the river.

When I first came to the Downs some fifteen years ago an old sign, burnt at one corner by a pyromaniac delinquent boasted that if I was very lucky I might see a buzzard here. These short years later I am surprised if I don't see the eagle-like silhouette riding the thermals across remote fields. Today twitchers gather in a small car park huddle, scopes peering out across the coombe. Somewhere here a rough legged buzzard  is wintering. In most years as few as five of these magnificent raptors visit the United Kingdom, and birders from far and wide have scanned the coombe, trying to pick out which of the four or five buzzards that soar above is the one they need for their tick list.

He appears as I reach the triangle of copse that forms the Burgh proper. A covey of grey partridge are flushed from the hedge row, in turn startling a flock of fieldfares. Dunnock patrol the hedgerows, nervously twitching their wings as they feed. 

Across the coombe all eyes are on the rough legged buzzard, I turn north east towards Rackham Banks, and from the neighbouring field the unmistakable chatter of a sparrowhawk fills the air, and the copse erupts with alarm calls. 

A tractor pulls up and a genial farmer chats about the buzzards, a marked contrast to the iron lady who, not far from here at a local private estate pulled up in her expensive car to chastise me for walking on the wrong side of the footpath not long ago. 


Here on this farmer's land much has been done to improve the lot of the local wildlife, and a sign at the entrance proudly proclaims a list of species to be seen here. 


The ancient flint trackway, polished by thousands of years of hoof and foot, starts to glisten as the sun turns the sky the colour of hot coals. Arundel Castle turns purple and then mauve in the haze and on the horizon the sea burns as the sun slowly sinks below the surface.

Arlington Reservoir

Crepuscular rays cut through net curtains of clouds like a golden rapier, a carrion crow, fingery wings silhouetted against the sun cackles by. Below, the water sparkles like a silver coin dropped in a downland hollow.

Flocks of common gull bicker like hormonal teenagers. The shrivelled remnants of rosehips attract clouds of chattering long tailed tits, and the occasional coal tit. Away to the south over the grey whaleback of the south downs rain heavy clouds rush by on a wintery westerly breeze.

On the reservoir wigeon  gossip happily among themselves, while a gravel voiced jay chases a straying squirrel from a small copse, before proudly preening himself on a sun streaked fencepost.

The sun is obscured and the waters turn the muddy brown of wealden clay, and the clouds lower and thicken with anger.

Coppiced woodland creaks and sways like the mast of ships port bound by woodland storms. Firle Beacon towers above, the highest point of the eastern end of the south downs, the northern escarpment shrinks away in shadow below the humped crown which kaleidoscopes from green to gold to grey and mauve.

A cormorant skims the surface of the waters, twisting and turning, feet inches above the choppy waves before rising off to the north and joining fifteen more forming a soldiery shoreside line behind a bemused corporal of a grey heron. They watch common and herring gulls wheeling in dogfights across the waters.

This place feels like what it is, forced and managed to the n'th degree, where signs welcome but guard against having too much fun. Algae and animals are out to harm us, and the mud is soft and dangerous, unless, it seems, one is angler or boatowner. In places black bags of dog shit decorate the branches of trees like the remains of some macabre Xmas celebration.

 As I leave a skein of canda geese honks its noisy arrival, and the sky comes alive with the fire of sunset

02.02.12

Amberley Wild Brooks is marked on some maps as Amberley Swamp, and there's a sign warning of 'dangerous marshes'. Whether its brook, swamp or marsh matters not, they're all the same when they are filling your boots with cold, black wintery water. Stonechats converse nosily, with voices that sound like stones being tapped together. They remain a sight unseen, hidden perhaps among clouds of blue tits, great tits and coal tits, as here are there a small flock of long tailed tits flash by. No sign of the Bewick's swans that bought me to this boggy playground, the low marsh and high shrubbery restricting visibility to only short distances.



I follow the route back, and recall a calamitous navigational error that had me jumping ditches, climbing fences and being chased by cattle a summer ago. A new signpost saves others from the relationship ending arguments that such mistakes can lead to. 

Although only January 2nd, daffodils decorate the roadside here.

Heading back through Quell's farm there are some gaps in the treeline that afford a peering view down onto the shining waters of the Arun, now on it's ebb. On the opposite bank a chocolate Labrador barks at nothing in particular, and flushes the falcon peregrine from the reeds just below me; three silent, hefty wing beats and she's away, lost behind the trees. I am right under the perch where I saw her on my last visit, and can see why she chooses this spot, with it's high view out across flooded marsh where a hearty menu of wildfowl await a hungry hawk.

The short eared owl's are big news now and  Waltham Brooks  is busy with heads popping up from behind every bush. Here the Arun starts to run fast as it heads for it's gap in the South Downs just south of Amberley. Suddenly the peregrine flashes past, flying low, and turning hard south after crossing the river, calling in in what seems sheer delight at her flight. She rises up into the sun, like a fighter pilot preparing for ambush. It's like looking into a fire trying to follow her and she's soon lost from view.

No-one in the field reacts, so hard-wired are they into finding their target species they fail to see this perfect hunting machine not twenty feet above their heads. Thirty years ago these creatures were dying out in our country, but now they are recovering. The peregrine has evolved so effectively, so perfectly that her qualities are incorporated in the design of modern fighter jets.This individual is large, her white underside flecked with fine dark spots, and her back is a fitting RAF blue. It's a curse that the sun is the wrong side for anything more than a blurry silhouette of a photograph.

Seeking out a wet and boggy seat to provide cover for photographing owls  a merlin is flushed and he swoops away, sending up great clouds of assorted tits and starlings. Behind me, and across the field the owl-watchers ignore this rare and stunning bird, the smallest of our falcons.

A short eared owl quarters the field right next to me, he hunts me, my size diminishing to that of a vole, his eyes fix mine, I cannot tear my gaze away, he closes, his mottled feathers merge with vegetation, only his eyes have colour, bright amber staring, fixed and then, suddenly, he's away. He veers dramatically west, dropping one wing and away, into the sun. Three feathers rest lightly on the ground hard by the hawthorn.




He calls his shreiking call, and hastens his pace, swinging towards the flood defence bank over the old canal lock.  He drops low, skimming reed mace and rises to confront a nearby male who has strayed onto his territory. They grapple mid-air, shreiking and calling, tussling with talons raised, before my male breaks and with fast beats to propel him away glides into nearby shrubbery to lick his wounds.

There are six owls here today, the most seen since November when they first arrived and they put on a show for the gathered twitchers. One rises right in front of a waiting photgrapher, vole firmly clenched in knife like talons. 

Three Bewick's swans honk as they pass overhead, signalling the coming of sunset, and short splash across fields to a waiting flask.

01.01.12

A cloud base of 500ft changes plans for a high level walk on Rackham Banks to a misty stroll around  Pulborough Brooks.

In the car park a robin sings for his breakfast and fearlessly snatches his reward from outstretched fingers, before doing a new year jig among the hawthorn.

Several mark territories around the reserve, singing a more plaintive song than in the summer, conspicuous in the winter stripped hedgerows.

West Mead is flooded and a fleet of canada geese set sail with an escort of wigeon, anxiously scanning the skies, perhaps wary of the merlin that passed by shortly before I reached the hide.

Black fallow deer huddle in numbers, exposed in the field centre, as the cloud thickens and lowers and causal visitors hurry by in seek of shelter.

Several redwing make exploratory dashes from dense thicket cover to pick at fields for worms bought to the surface by the recent heavy rains. Their nervous dashes have the watcher glassing the skies for the small and agile merlin , to no avail.

Bank holiday twitchers line a viewing point, drawn here by it's view of the peregrine's regular perch. The male, the tiercel, mocks their impatient waiting by flying high and wide behind and out of view of their expectant spotting scopes. Soon heavy rain will drive them into the cafes and pubs and he will resume his perch, untroubled by admirers.

A grey squirrel breaks cover and busies himself looking for beech nuts, a convenient tree allows for approach close enough to hear the shell being systematically cracked in hungry teeth, his concentration so fully on the delights within it seems possible to reach out and pinch the morsel from his paws.

A crescendo of noise announces arrival at Nettleys, where several hundred wigeon patrol wetland banks, gorging on grasses and roots. In the rushes a grey heron maintains sentry in a stand of beige reedmace, a silent, still assassin, waiting patiently for his victim to pass through.

Out on the flooded meadows black tailed godwit, lapwing, shelduck and ruff fight for space, taking to the skies in a cacophony of noise at the slightest hint of the presence of the peregrine. Comical looking shoveler, spatulate beaks looking so heavy that they should surely sink this ungainly creature, mine sweep in channels and ditches, while moorhen wobble along banks in search of a morsel of worm.

A mallard and his partner engage in a brief mating session hard by the bank, he nods and passes by, she nods back, and he nods again before mounting his amour, fortunately briefly as she sinks under his enthusiastic attention. They wash feathers immediately and Casanova turns his attention to a second female who enters his pond.

Comedy is provided by an antlered black fallow deer wearing a crown of shrubbery among his antlers, his teenage-like posing in front of disinterested females monitored closely by an older, more fully antlered adult. When the youngster slowly and carefully pursues a young female into nearby woodland it is not long before the older male follows suit, as if to chaperon the errant member of his harem and her pubescent suitor.

The females look on, unmoved, and huddle tighter against rain that falls in cold steel rods.

A walk back down wooded avenues reveals a treat in a trio of jays, normally shy a solitary male perches on a post, briefly shed of inhibition he croaks a winter tune before retreating among his friends in high branches.

A bullfinch sits on a branch singing, his red suit and mournful song reminiscent of a drunk wending his way home from hogmanay celebrations long since finished.

24.12.2011

Waltham Brooks

The fire still rages behind the Downs, the sky burns the orange of an early winter sunset.

A walk along the flood bank to a further field brings the solitude of a lone tree. Rushes abound on a small island, just south of the canal entrance, and a distraction here spoils a photgraphic opportunity when I rise over the bank to disturb a large male short eared owl with a water vole firmly grasped in his talons.

He rises up and scolds me as he seeks the cover of the shrubs 500 metres west. Clouds cover the sun and the colours change to tired greys.

The trouble with owls is that they are the colour of bark, and hide in trees.

I glass the length of the shrubbery for a  few minutes unsuccessfully before one, then a second, takes to the air. They dogfight over some imagined slight before one retreats, wisely chooing a hawthorn further west as his perch. Battle is spectacular, with twists and turns, screeching and aerobatics; all bluff and bluster, neither wishing to retire hurt on such fertile hunting grounds.

The kestrel keeps his solitary distance, drifting south, and higher, watching all the time.

 
Just before four the sun sets and the winds drag the clouds to the east. The sky burns again, and the fields empty towards homes with mince pies waiting for intrepid explorers.

20.12.2011

Waltham Brooks
 

The sky over the Downs glows, as if some unseen fire rages on the southern side, hidden from view by the grey whaleback slopes.

Waltham is still saturated with the rain of the previous few days and flocks of mallards chatter excitedly from the flooded meadow; here and there a gull swoops in to share the waters. Kicking up the soil near the old canal path reveals the foundations of the long-demolished lock keeper's cottage, the rain and vegetation indicating the rod straight canal locks running away towards the Arun.

The school holidays are here and the footpaths are busier than I am used to. Brightly coloured garb, excited chatter and barking dogs do nothing except drive the owls to the other side of the river. One shifts across by Greatham Bridge, and drops into the grass as a child squeals in excitement. Eventually he rises to a post where he can survey this stranger in his domain.

A kestrel quarters the field, settling on a hover near the brooks before plummeting from sight into the long grass.

Darkness brings a chill.

14.12.2011

Wiggonholt Common

Fingers of smoke and mist creeps between the trees on Wiggonholt Common, which smells of bonfires from where clearance works are taking place in Northpark Wood, just over the road to Greatham.

A trio of great spotted woodpeckers swarm over the rotting corpse of an alder, the slightest noise driving them onto the opposite side of the trunk. A bounding Labrador finally flushes them into the canopy and away. 

Crossbills, brick red against the grey mist, chatter nosily as they acrobatically feed from the cones in the evergreen clump. Here and there a robin announces his presence with his whistling song, a melodic warning to others that this was most definitely his territory. It's struggling to rain, and by the first hour of the afternoon it already felt like dusk was coming. 

Waltham Brooks  is drenched in grey, the rain pools on already soaking watermeadow. This is be no day to see the short eared owls that have recently arrived here, and that I watched just a few days ago. The wind and rain a hinderance to creatures that hunt by sound. This is a grey day, a day to be indoors with a log fire, and a glass of something Scottish.

I edge along the riverbank, dropping down to walk at about halfway up the steep slope, the better to disguise my silhouette. A peregrine watches me from a power line across on the other bank. I glass him, and his head tilts inquisitively as we watch each other; the watcher watched.

Falcons never fly when you're watching them.

I look down momentarily and he's gone, slipping effortlessly away into the steel grey sky, his departure belied by the cloud of starlings he sends up to the south.

A grey heron rises with slow, languid, almost thoughtful flight and puts down again in the reeds on the far bank, only his head peering curiously back at me. His expression one of annoyance as if I had disturbed some long awaited table at Michelin starred restaurant.

I try to use the cover of some autumn-stripped branches to approach, but a crack of a branch and a splosh of a boot in a puddle and he's away again, another 300 yards south, and into deeper reeds. He croaks his sore-throated anger at me, and disappears from view.

I climb back up to the flood bank, where the old canal lock used to allow the barques onto the river, and pick up a kestrel, low behind the leafless shrubs that form the shore of the flooded part of the meadows, he rises, hovers, shifts east then west slightly, drops, hovers then plummets from the sky and I lose sight.

Beneath my feet, a pile of neatly plucked moorhen  feathers and a few bones glisten in the rain. A falcon has fed here recently.

I start to retrace my footsteps, tiring of the rain, and he's there again. I see the peregrine glide into the tree, and turn to watch me. He hops along sideways, then stiffens. I seek a tree to break up my shape and watch, and wait.

He rises, and heads straight for the flood waters, climbing slowly, sending up great clouds of waders and ducks, before circling higher into the slate-grey sky and disappearing. After I while I turn back to glass his tree and he's there; as if he'd run the ducks just for fun. I left him sat there, fluffed up against the rainy..