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.
Field Studies Council Programme
Please see the Links page for links to the FSC site.
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 but this should change from now on with the peak months of December and January ahead of us. So what can we expect to see locally in the next few months?
My garden is seeing an increased number of goldfinches, with peak numbers in the low teens so far. Long-tailed tits are roaming around in small groups and coal tits are doing their usual smash and grab raids on the sunflower heart feeders. Jays and greater spotted woodpeckers are increasing their visits and chaffinches have started to return too. I am hoping for bramblings, siskins, lesser redpolls and the winter thrushes – redwings and fieldfares before long. All have been reported locally already. Wildfowl numbers are starting to build up on lakes, with teal, wigeon, shoveler, gadwall, tufted duck, coot, moorhen and cormorants settling in. Streams of gulls fly over at dawn and dusk heading to and from their roosts and starling flocks are noticeably increasing in size. So far, the usual great grey shrike hasn’t appeared on Thursley Common, but a short-eared owl has been on the Papercourt Water meadows for a few days, attracting an admiring crowd. At the London Wetland Centre, two bitterns have been reported along with pintail, jack snipe, snipe and water pipits.
There is 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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