December

The Nest Box Survey carried out by the British Trust For Ornithology (BTO) each year shows how birds fare using nest boxes in gardens. This year some 1,775 boxes were used by blue tits and great tits and results show that over recent years both species have done well. The year 2010 had a good breeding season for both blue tit and great tit, with clutch and brood sizes significantly higher than the average for the previous five years. The latest data for the year 2011 indicates that the clutch sizes for blue tits is slightly down on the years 2009/2010, but the great tit average clutch size remained high. The past three summers have seen a run of higher clutch and brood sizes for both species Perhaps this is a consequence of those years having warmer and drier  April-May periods than average. Other results show that blue tits have been laying progressively earlier over the past five years, with the average first laying date having advanced by over a week since 1968.

The group indoor meeting in December is on Wednesday 14th at the White Hart Barn, Godstone starting at 8.00pm. This is our Christmas Social with members tales and photographs. Light refreshments are served. Everyone is welcome, admission £3.00.
The group indoor meeting in January is on Wednesday 11th at the White Hart Barn, Godstone starting at 8.00pm. The speaker will be Ralph Todd who will talk about a trip through Texas and California, including whale watching.

The field trip in December is on Sunday 18th to Shellness and Harty Ferry on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent meeting at Godstone Green car park at 8.00am.
The field trip in January is on Sunday 15th to Dungeness area in Kent, meeting at Godstone Green car park at 8.00am. For the field trips bring cold weather clothing, packed lunch and we try to share cars, thus fuel costs.

October

The RSPB now has two hundred nature reserves, which attracts two million visitors a year. These visitors help to bring sixty six million pounds into local communities, supporting over one thousand eight hundred local jobs -  an increase of 87% since the year 2002. The protection of rare wildlife habitats as nature reserves are often found in the more remote areas, thus the benefits they bring to rural communities can be very important. The growing popularity of television programmes such as “Springwatch” and “Countryfile”  show the amazing wildlife we have in this country, and this is reflected in more and more people visiting nature reserves and the open countryside on a regular basis. The value of these places is seen in the increasing membership to such organisations such as the RSPB, the Wildlife Trusts and to a lesser extent the National Trust. Research by both Natural England and the Scottish Natural Heritage show that nature-based tourism has increased dramatically in recent years, bringing millions of pounds and jobs into such areas.

Reintroduction of charismatic  species can be a great draw for nature tourism. The return of the once extinct white-tailed sea eagle to the isles of Mull and Skye now supports more than 150 local jobs, whilst the reintroduction of red kites to Dumfries and Galloway has brought 20 local jobs, plus of course benefits to the local businesses such as pubs, hotels and restaurants etc that benefit directly from the influx of nature tourism.
The Mull of Galloway in south west Scotland is one of the RSPB’s more remote nature reserves but it manages to support 13 local jobs and attracts twenty thousand visitors who bring more than half a million pounds to the local economy.

The group indoor meeting in November is on Wednesday 9th at the White Hart Barn, Godstone starting at 8pm. The speaker will be Dennis Newland  who will give a talk entitled “On Elephant back in Nepal” a journey through the  National Parks and cultural sites of the country. Everyone is welcome, admission £3.00.
The group field trip in November is on Sunday 13th to Pagham Harbour and The Burgh in Sussex, meeting at Godstone Green car park at 8am.

August

A hoopoe was present for a few days on Farthing Down in the middle of August. This beautiful bird, more common in southern Europe, breeds across southern and central Europe as far east as China. Hoopoes turn up in the British Isles in very small numbers each year. In fact in Surrey it has been recorded over a hundred and fifty times in the last century, with records from such local sites as Dormansland, Earlswood, Godstone, Horne, Holmethorpe, Kenley, Limpsfield, Merstham, Oxted, Redhill and Reigate. Hoopoes are typical of what we call southern overshoots with a small number of birds arriving in the spring, usually April, but not staying long before moving back south, although occasionally some birds stay for quite a while. The autumn sees a smaller number turning up, and there have been a few records of hoopoes wintering in this country. Pairs of hoopoes have occasionally bred in southern England, with a record of a pair raising two young at Thursley during the 1970’s. I remember in 1956 when I was growing up in a village in Hampshire the local paper carrying weekly reports of a pair of hoopoes nesting at a secret location in a nearby unnamed village. The pair were successful in rearing one young bird.

The group indoor meeting in October is on Wednesday 12th at the White Hart Barn, Godstone starting at 8.00pm. The speaker will be David Boag a well known speaker to the group who will give a talk entitled “The Kingfisher”. Everyone is welcome, admission £3.00.

The group field trip in October is on Sunday 16th to Reculver and Oare Marshes in Kent meeting at Godstone Green car park at 8.00am. Bring a packed lunch, we try and share cars and therefore fuel costs.

June

The Rutland Osprey Project is a partnership between Anglian Water and the Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust to re-establish a breeding population of ospreys in England. In recent years there have been a number of ospreys released in the area, and there have been breeding successes.
In April of last year two male ospreys disappeared in suspicious circumstances from nests close to the reservoir. In May of this year a third male osprey disappeared in the same area. The most likely explanation is that the birds may well have been shot, as it is extremely unusual for apparently healthy male ospreys to vanish at this stage of the breeding season. There is a chance that the birds may have become tangled in netting at local lakes and ponds as ospreys will hunt at these sites if fishing at Rutland is difficult. There have been cases in Scotland of ospreys becoming tangled in netting in the past.
Male ospreys usually do about a quarter of the incubation of the eggs,  the female being significantly dependent on her mate for food during the breeding season.
Ospreys are protected as a Schedule One species under the Wildlife and Countryside Act of 1981, meaning that it is a very serious offence to intentionally harm or kill them. With increasing numbers of ospreys breeding in the British Isles, these birds regularly pass through our area on their spring and autumn migration.
The group indoor meeting in July is on Wednesday 13th at the White Hart Barn, Godstone starting at 8.00pm. Barry Wright will give a talk entitled: Travels in South America - Wildlife and Scenery from Venezuela to Argentina. Everyone is welcome, admission £3.00.
The group field trip in July is on Sunday 17th meeting at Godstone Green car park at 8.00am. This is our annual mystery trip, the destination being decided at the last minute dependent upon where any interesting birds are. Bring a packed lunch and we try to share cars and therefore fuel costs.

May

 Over six hundred thousand people took part in the RSPB “Big Garden Birdwatch” at the end of January. This was a record breaking number of people taking part in this count,  and the results have just been released.
The long harsh winter of 2009/2010 affected small birds like long-tailed tit, goldcrest and coal tits with numbers of all three species being well down in last years Big Garden Birdwatch. So it was interesting to see how the small birds fared in this year’s count. Sightings of goldcrest doubled, long-tailed tits increased by a third, coal tits by a quarter, with numbers of blue tits increasing by twenty two percent and great tits by twelve percent. Small birds can be particularly badly affected by harsh winters, but a good breeding season can help reverse declines, and 2010 was generally considered to have been a good year for many of our smaller breeding birds.
House sparrows retained the top spot, with starling second and blackbirds third. Also in the top ten were blue tit, chaffinch, woodpigeon, great tit, goldfinch, robin, and collared dove. Waxwings were seen in almost a thousand gardens, reflecting the large numbers of these birds that arrived in the UK this last winter. Some of the more unusual birds recorded were black redstart, lapwing, raven, grey partridge and red kite.
The group indoor meeting in May is on Wednesday 11th at the White Hart Barn, Godstone starting at 8.00pm. The speaker will be Glenda Law who will talk about the wildlife of Guyana after a recent visit to this under reported birding destination. Everyone is welcome, admission £3.00.
  The field trips in May include a coach trip to Minsmere RSPB Reserve in Suffolk on Sunday May 8th leaving at 7.30am from Godstone, and a field trip by car on Sunday May 22nd to Acre Down in the New Forest- meeting at Godstone Green car park at 7.00am. We try to share cars and therefore fuel costs.

April

The second week in March saw lesser redpolls finally turn up in my garden much later than in recent years with a maximum number of seven in the garden at one time. March 14th saw two brambling in the garden, one male and one female, this being the first time that I have had two of these delightful birds in the garden at one time. Locally, early March saw flocks of waxwings reported from Warlingham, Coulsdon and the Holmethorpe area. A bittern was seen again briefly on the Bay Pond at Godstone on March 5th. A red kite was seen at Chelsham on March 7th and one over Godstone on February 28th. At Holmethorpe a white-fronted goose, a red-crested pochard, dunlin and a Mediterranean gull were all seen in the first two weeks of March, and an oystercatcher at the end of February. To the south of us along the Sussex coast the first of our summer migrants were seen by the middle of March, with swallows, sand martins, wheatear, chiffchaff and ringed plover reported in ones and twos. By the time you read this article the first of these birds will have arrived in our area or have started to pass through to travel further north. Recently there have been reports of common cranes and spoonbills in Sussex, so you may be lucky and see these birds should they pass through our area.

The group indoor meeting in April is on Wednesday 13th at the White Hart Barn, Godstone starting at 8.00 pm. This meeting is preceded by our AGM which usually lasts about ten minutes. The speaker for the main meeting is Peter Holden who will give a talk entitled “A Celebration of Birds”  Recollections with film clips of his forty years work for the RSPB. This is a change to our previous list of monthly meetings. Everyone is welcome, admission £3.00.

March

At the end of January and into February a bittern was seen on several occasions at the Bay Pond, Godstone. This is the second winter in a row that a bittern has been recorded at the Bay Pond with a bird being seen at the same time last year. Another bittern was reported at Hedgecourt Lake in Felbridge. Also in February at Hedgecourt Lake a red-crested pochard was seen, and again at the Bay Pond, Godstone a goosander was seen. Waxwings continued to be seen throughout early February with sightings at Caterham and Merstham and with the flock at Redhill being present most days. Siskins and lesser redpolls seem to be down in numbers reported in gardens this winter, although in a garden in Tandridge there were reports of a dozen lesser redpoll daily. Numbers of redwing and fieldfare have gone down since the snow melted,  so presumably these birds have moved further south west. A possible woodcock was seen in a garden in Merstham, and a possible water rail reported from a garden in Godstone.
By the end of March the first of our summer migrants will be arriving. Look out for chiffchaff and sand martins. The first wheatears will be passing through our area as they move further north.

The group indoor meeting in March is on Wednesday 9th at the White Hart Barn, Godstone starting at 8.00pm. The speaker will be Bill Coster who will give a talk entitled “Namibia & Hawaii/Midway” - two digital presentations of these less well-known areas. Everyone is welcome, admission  £3.00.
The field trip in March is on Sunday 27th to Rye Harbour in Sussex. Meet at Godstone Green car park at 8.00am. Bring a packed lunch, cold weather clothing and walking boots. We try to share cars and therefore fuel costs.

February

The robin is well known for its solitary territorial behaviour. Although regarded by many, particularly gardeners, for its friendliness, it is much less friendly to its own kind, remaining territorial throughout the year. This is the reason that gardens generally have only one robin each, unless they have paired up, but should a third robin arrive there is a territorial dispute in which the newcomer is usually quickly ejected from the territory. However during harsh winter weather as we have seen in the early part of the current winter, these territorial boundaries can beak down with groups of robins feeding together on bird tables and feeders. One report this winter quoted six robins feeding together on a bird table.
There is a movement of robins from Europe to the British Isles during the autumn and winter months, with good numbers of ringed birds from Europe being reported this winter from Belgium, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands. The robins here are looked on as a friendly garden bird, but on the continent they are considered to be much more of a forest bird.There are many collective nouns for birds such as – a charm of goldfinches, but as the robin is generally a solitary bird, there is no such collective noun for robins.

Some interesting birds that have turned up locally in January included smew, goldeneye, shelduck and little egret at Holmethorpe in Redhill, waxwings, brambling, lesser redpoll and siskin have been seen in various local areas.