Spring Escape

Thursday 22 March - There were two clashing hobby opportunities today: Gaming with one friend or birding with another. The choice wasn't easy, as the venue of the gaming was an invitation-only gathering of friendly game-geeks which only occurs twice a year. My birding guru, however, was going away for a while, I could play games the following day as well, and the deciding factor was that it was a glorious Spring day. Birding won (and as it turned out the friend I would have gone to the game-playing with had made a similar decision that it was too nice to stay indoors).

We set off to Seaford Head in the hope that we would see some seasonal migrants (year-ticks!) but in fact the day was very quiet. It would have been churlish to complain though, after months of chilly winter birding. The weather was mild and signs of Spring everywhere.





We had a nice walk round by the cliffs with slightly misty but beautiful views of the famous Seven Sisters at Hope Gap before turning inland up the side of the Cuckmere valley. Here we came across a poignant reminder of the Canadian boys, so many of whom had been here in the forties and never returned to their homeland, having given their lives both on this spot (as commemorated on the plaque) and just across the water on the coast of Normandy.

Completing our circuit back to the car we passed through a farm where a lot of happy little lambs were gambolling. In the course of our walk we had had some good views of a brace of buzzards and a pair of peregrines - none to happy about each others presence as a brief dogfight between the species ensued.

At one point we clearly heard the "Gronk!" of a nearby raven and struggled to locate the source for a moment before realising that he was passing immediately overhead. This would be the first of the year for me. Elsewhere there were egrets, wigeon, black-headed and common gulls, sparrows, chaffinches and other regular friends.

After this we headed up to Arlington Reservoir where we first sat at a picnic table in the sunshine and had our lunch while surveying the sparkling water with our binoculars.

There wasn't a lot to see apart from a good number of fisherman, one of whom walked past with four tasty-looking trout hanging from his hand.

Out on the water a number of great-crested grebe were pairing off, there were little grebe about and a large number of gulls, some of them common gulls. We could hear not only the "teacher teacher" of a great tit but the more laboured chiff chaff of the...chiff chaff.

We were to see several of these, as well as a coal tit, robin, blue tit, chaffinches and cormorants during our walk round the reservoir.

As at Seaford the currant-carpeted close-nibbled sward was evidence of many rabbits but here the signs were unnecessary as the buns themselves were visible hopping, skipping and barging through the fields and undergrowth with flashes of white from their scuts seen everywhere out of the corner of the eye.

There were a number of nice flowers (and busy wild bees) to be seen too and if any more evidence of Spring was needed several species of butterfly crossed our path during our circuit.