Here you will find details of wildlife events in Elmbridge and any unusual sightings in Elmbridge or nearby. Please email one of the Editors if you think an unusual local sighting or details of a local natural history event warrant a mention here.
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Wildlife Diary
Surrey Bird News – November 2018 With the clock change at the end of October, we are all aware that winter is well and truly here. We had been getting off quite lightly with bright sunny days and reasonable temperatures and just the occasional miserable wet day. The night of Wednesday 21 November changed all that with one of the coldest November nights for some years, temperatures dropped to nearly -7C in Oxfordshire and somewhere around -3 to -4C locally, with a thick rime of frost as dawn broke on the Thursday.
So far this winter, winter migrants have been slow to build up numbers and with the current mild conditions in mid-February numbers will probably now rapidly drop away. So what can we expect to see locally in the next few months?
My garden did seeg an increased number of goldfinches, with peak numbers in the low teens but this has dropped back to low single figures now. Long-tailed tits have been largely absent but an occasional one or two drop by, while coal tits are just occaional visitors. Jays rarely make an appearance but greater spotted woodpeckers are regular with two different females visiting. Chaffinches have disappeared again, as have the lesser redpolls, and I have had no bramblings or siskins at all. Winter thrushes – usually redwings feed on the school field behind the garden and sometimes drop in to the garden if disturbed. Wildfowl numbers have stayed below average on lakes, with goldeneye, teal, wigeon, shoveler, gadwall, tufted duck, coot, moorhen and cormorants still present but in low numbers. Streams of gulls still fly over at dawn and dusk heading to and from their roosts and starling flocks are stable. The usual great grey shrike never arrived on Thursley Common, but a short-eared owl has been on the Papercourt Water Meadows for several weeks, attracting an admiring crowd. At the London Wetland Centre, three two bitterns have been reported along with pintail, jack snipe, snipe and water pipits but will soon disperse, with the bitterns usually gone by mid-March. Goosanders have been in good numbers at their regular sites such as Moor Green Lakes, Sandhurst and Pennymead Lake, East Horsley. Hawfinches, bramblings and crossbills have been at regular sites in small numbers.
There is still plenty to see outside at this time of year – you just need to wrap up warmly and go and look for it.
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