Volunteer Traning Day - Wildflower Identification with Dominic Price

Middle Heath Enclosure - Owlbeech Woods

Yesterday saw the fourth of our now annual volunteer training days in Wildflower ID run by Dominic Price of the The Species Recovery Trust. This is an excellent opportunity for some of our volunteers to gain valuable ID skills with the long term aim of getting some more help with our Higher Level Stewardship (HLS) survey work.

A group of 17 all met at Owlbeech Woods bright-eyed and bushy-tailed ready for an exciting morning exploring the heathland restoration project and learning how the heath is developing as it becomes more effectively managed. Some of the first species we looked at were Pill Sedge and Green-ribbed Sedge both of which were growing on the recently scraped areas and were good indicators of this dry area of heathland. We then moved into one of the vehicle tracks which has a nice open sword with lots of bare sandy soil. This gave us the chance to look at some lovely heathland species such as Heath Milkwort, Tormentil and Heath Bedstraw. We also looked at lots of different grasses and learnt some field tips for doing some of them vegetatively such as Yorkshire Fog below which has a 'stripy pajama' look about it on the stems. Hopefully one which all of the group will remember!

Yorkshire Fog - Holcus lanatus 

It was excellent to see so much Brown Bent on the scraped areas which I was really pleased about on a management level. We then moved to the boggy pools which are mainly in the Middle Heath Enclosure which produced a different sweet of species such as Bulbous Rush, Compact Rush and Yellow Sedge all of which were seemingly easy enough to identify by field characters such as the reddish base to the Bulbous Rush and the tennis ball-like tightness to the Compact Rush flowers.

Wet Meadow - Warnham LNR

After a well earned lunch at Warnham LNR we headed out onto the Wet Meadow compartment of the Reserve and found a totally different mix of wetland clay-soil specialists which was a nice change from the heathland in the morning session. Here we noted lots of remnants from its intensive agriculture days such as Perennial Rye-grass and the like. Cock's-foot was much more abundant here and much of it which had not been grazed was flowering as in the picture below.

Cock's-foot - Dactylis glomerata

There was a great deal more by way of flowering plants at Warnham than compared to the heathland which was no surprise due to the nature of the soil. Species in flower included Devil's-bit Scabious, Yarrow, Soft Rush, Hard Rush, Lesser Spearwort, Red Bartsia to name but a few. We also had the chance to learn how to ID Common Fleabane both by leaf and the more obvious yellow flowers as below.

Common Fleabane - Pulicaria dysenterica

Many thanks to all of the volunteers that attended and I really hope you got something out of the day and also have remember some of the ID tips that Dominic imparted on us. A huge thanks also goes to the wonderful tuition of Dominic it is always a memorable day out and we very much look to welcoming him back in May 2018. A summary of most of the days species can be found below - I am sure I am missing plenty!

Species List - Owlbeech Woods

• Common Bent
• Sweet Vernal Grass
• Yorkshire Fog
• Pill Sedge
• Green-ribbed Sedge
• Dwarf Gorse
• Bulbous Rush
• Yellow Sedge
• Compact Rush
• Purple Moor Grass
• Tormentil
• Heath Milkwort
• Heath Bedstraw
• Brown Bent
• Common Ragwort
• Common Cudweed
• Common Heather

Species List - Warnham LNR

• Hard Rush
• Meadow Buttercup
• Creeping Buttercup
• Redshank
• Floating Sweet Grass
• Jointed Rush
• Broad-leaved Dock
• Water Pepper
• Common Bulrush
• Timothy Grass
• Fen Bedstraw
• Water Horse-tail
• False Fox-sedge
• Reed Canary-grass
• Greater Plantain
• Thyme-leaved Speedwell
• Common Nettle
• Creeping Bent
• Water Star-wort
• Water Plantain
• Silverweed
• Common Fleabane
• Lesser Spearwort
• Creeping Thistle
• Knotgrass
• Teasel
• Tall Fescue
• Red Bartsia
• Meadow Vetchling
• Field Bindweed
• White Clover
• Perennial Rye Grass
• Spear Thistle
• Water Forget-me-not
• Common Ragwort

Chesworth Farm - Bird Log

Mike Ayling carried our his regular bird count which produced the following:

Barn Owl 2, Blue Tit 8, Carrion Crow 5, Dunnock 1, Great Tit 1, Jackdaw 4, Moorhen 2, Swallow 8, Wren 3, Blackbird 1, Bullfinch 4, Chiffchaff 8, Goldfinch 28, Herring Gull 4, Magpie 1, Robin 2, Woodpigeon 6

Meet the Bats this Sunday!!!

Summer Holiday Fun - Warden for the Day

Warnham LNR - Summer Holiday Pond Dipping

Saturday 19th August - Quekett Microscopical Club visit to Warnham LNR

Riverside Walk 2017

Paddington Bear™ - At Warnham LNR 

This weekend saw the annual Riverside Walk around Horsham's beautiful countryside take place. This fantastic event is run by the Horsham Town Community Partnership and the charity chosen to support in 2017 was Action Medical Research.  The walk began at Horsham Rugby Club and passed through three of the Countryside Teams sites. The first stop was at Chesworth Farm for a well deserved drink and toilet stop. As you can tell from the photos below the blisters had not set in to any of the participants yet!

The Friends of Chesworth Farm Drink Stop

The Friends of Chesworth Farm were on hand to replenish liquids and offer a toilet break before the 250+ participants of all ages carried on their 13-mile mission. From here the throng of walkers, joggers and disabled ramblers meandered their way around the outskirts of Horsham to Warnham Local Nature Reserve where the lunch stop and live music from The Toons were provided and very well received. Paddington Bear™ also made an appearance here to meet and greet and give moral support to the participants, he of course was accompanied by his trusty marmalade sandwich! The 1st Roffey Scout Group also did a fantastic job with providing the range of marquees and tents for the fatigued walkers to enjoy a well-earned perch!

                                                           A well earned lunch break at Warnham LNR

The walkers then continued on their merry way taking in the wonderful countryside and wildflower filled meadows as they neared the end of the trek. Leechpool & Owlbeech Woods was the last of the Countryside Sites that they visited and by now the peleton had diminished somewhat as people started to feel blisters, aches and pains of a hard days exercise! There was still lots of smiley faces which is the main thing and everyone seemed to have enjoyed the day.

Owlbeech Woods - Nearing the end!

This was yet another brilliant event and I would like to congratulate Jane and her team from the Horsham Town Community Partnership for running such an well received event. In total over £1500 was raised for a very worthwhile charity by the walkers with Frank Talbot raising over £800 on his own! What a star! A truly brilliant effort by all and a pleasure to be involved with the event once more.

WELL DONE WALKERS!!!

Brilliant Emerald on the wing at Warnham LNR

Brilliant Emerald - D. Pinguey

An unidentified 'Emerald' species of dragonfly was reported to the volunteers in the Visitor Centre at Warnham LNR on Wednesday and luckily one of our regular visitors was around to go and check it out. Damian Pinguey was very pleased to give us a call to confirm it was our first Brilliant Emerald of the year on our sites. Damian also managed to get a stunning photo of this beautiful dragonfly. It is nationally scarce in Britain so it is excellent to confirm this species on site once more.

Warnham Great Easter Trail

Warnham LNR - WeBS Survey

Confirm Core count species list Site Name: Warnham Mill Pond Primary count?   Date: Sun, 9 Apr, 2017 Time: 08:30 - 10:00 Note: You have checked the 'No terns present' box, indicating an assessment was made. Species Count Comment Buzzard 1   Coot 5   Cormorant 1   Egyptian Goose 1   Great Crested Grebe 2   Grey Heron 3   Grey Wagtail 1   Greylag Goose 2   Herring Gull 4   Little Grebe 1   Mallard 7   Moorhen 1   Mute Swan 1   Red Kite 1 One above Heronry Tufted Duck 11   Total number of species: 15 Individuals: 42

Warnham Moths & Birds

Oak Beauty - Warnham LNR

You might well think that as it is winter there would be very little by way of moth activity on the Reserves but this is not the case at all. Over the past couple of weeks you might have seen the odd moth start to appear in your headlights. These are almost certainly Dotted Border which is a dainty moth in the Geometridae family. The moth trap at Warnham has been pretty good with lots to look at considering the time of year.

Small Quaker - Warnham LNR

Common Quaker - Warnham LNR

Hebrew Character - Warnham LNR

As you will notice above many of the moths at this time of year are what everyone thinks of as 'boring brown moths' however this is for very good reason. At the time when the adults of these moths are on the wing there is very little by way of colour in our environment. The leaves are yet to come out and the habitat they frequent is mainly a brown, beige colourless one. So there would be little use being bright pink and green like an Elephant Hawkmoth as you would simply get eaten by a predator.

As the leaves come out and the flowers start to appear so do the more colourful moths which I will show you later in the year but for now, most of the moths we catch will be camouflage for the time of year so they are not boring moths at all but in fact very sensible moths!

Early Grey - Warnham LNR

Another interesting fact about our winter and early spring moths is that they adopt a very different approach to being eaten to that of our summer moths. You will be well versed in how active a summer moth can be around a light as they buzz around your living rooms and just how hard they can be to catch to release back outdoors. This is due to the warm ambient temperature that they have the energy to try and escape capture. In the winter it is quite the reverse due to the lower temperatures they simply play dead rather than try and flee to preserve energy.

Meanwhile Paul Shergold has been busy with the camera again around the Reserve and has managed to get some excellent photos. The Kestrel seems to have found a mate so fingers crossed we might have a new pair on site. The Teal have been seen displaying and finally I managed to see a pair mating in front of Tern Hide yesterday. The Mute Swan pair seem to be having issues with deciding exactly where they would like to nest and they now have two half built nests! Thanks to Paul for the excellent photos.

Kestrel - P. Shergold

Teal - P. Shergold

Mute Swan - P. Shergold

February Half-term Fun at Warnham LNR

Warnham LNR - Tree Felling & Bonfire

Warnham LNR - Water Rail

Water Rail - Barry Clough

Water Rail - Barry Clough

Water Rail - Barry Clough

These stunning images of the Water Rail which is currently using the Woodpecker Hide for regular lunch stops were taken by Reserve regular Barry Clough. For most of us it would be a great days birding to catch a brief glimpse of such an elusive bird but photographers last week were able to fill there memory cards as this little chap strutted his stuff in front of the feeders. Well done to Barry for the amazing pictures - what a lucky chap!

Warnham LNR - Walnut Tree Plantation

Bramble Bashing at Warnham LNR

Another cold morning greeted the volunteers from Horsham Green Gym as they paid a visit to Walnut Tree Plantation at Warnham Local Nature Reserve. This mornings task was to cut back the ever encroaching Bramble from around the Hazel coppice which was planted in 2015. The Bramble up until now has helped us protect the new Hazel saplings from being browsed by Roe Deer but it has now become too extensive so the group did a great job removing some of the Bramble.

As you can see from the photo above the hazel whips eventually started to appear once we got deeper into the Bramble. The next job was to remove the tree tubes from the whips that had died, the use of the Bramble to protect the whips was pretty effective here and there weren't to many that had been browsed off and killed. It is hoped that the increased light levels afforded by the scrub clearance should give the whips an excellent growth year coming up.

 Once all of the tree tubes had be removed we started the last section of the coppice job which was to reinstate the woven hedge which serves as a barrier to keep most of the public to the paths.  In this area of the Plantation the ground flora is very good so we try to keep trampling to a minimum and Helen and Peter were rightly very proud of the job they had done with the barrier! Thank you very much once again to all the Horsham Green Gym members who attended the task. The next volunteer task is at Broadbridge Heath Bike Jumps off Byfleets Lane on Tuesday 31st January. This is a very exciting project of turning the now redundant BMX jumps into a butterfly haven. The meeting location is postcode: RH12 3PA or the OS map ref is TQ152 319

Job Done!

Our visitors have also been busy with their respective cameras this week and we have had a number of photos sent in for use on the blog. I hope you enjoy the lovely selection sent in by one observer this week of a few of the common species seen around the Reserve at this time of year. Also of note the Water Rail(s) seem to have taken up residence in the Woodpecker Hide once more so keep your eyes peeled on here for some nice photos 

 Robin

Great Spotted Woodpecker

Grey Squirrel

Warnham LNR

Siskin - J. Glover

A quiet day on the Reserve with Horsham Green Gym doing some Silver Birch thinning and fencing in Millpond Plantation to keep the Roe Deer of the new hedgeline. The few highlights on the wildlife front are below:

1 Tawny Owl (by Visitors Centre), 1 Kingfisher, 2 Shoveler, 10 Tufted Duck, 87 Greylag Goose, 1 Little Grebe, 1 Little Egret, 1 Grey Heron, 1 Bullfinch, 6 Goldfinch, 5+ Siskin and 5 Cormorant

Warnham LNR - Wetland Bird Survey (WeBS)

Cormorant - J. Glover

Mike Ayling carried out the Wetland Bird Survey (WeBS) today which produced the following:

Confirm Core count species list Site Name: Warnham Mill Pond Primary count?   Date: Sun, 15 Jan, 2017 Time: 08:30 - 10:00 Note: You have checked the 'No terns present' box, indicating an assessment was made. Species Count Comment Black-headed Gull 36   Common Gull 1   Coot 2   Cormorant 6   Grey Heron 1   Herring Gull 18   Little Grebe 1   Mallard 15   Moorhen 3   Pochard 11 7M, 4F Shoveler 3   Teal 8   Tufted Duck 7   Total number of species: 13 Individuals: 112

Redwing Bonanza at Warnham LNR

Redwing - Ian Nicol

As many of you are aware the bush in the front of the Visitor Centre at Warnham LNR always plays host to a greedy flock of Thrushes in late winter. After a few frosts the berries become soft enough for the birds to be able to digest and then they come in the 10's! Our highest count so far is 17 Redwing, 1 Song Thrush and 3 Blackbird all in one bush! If you are patient and quiet enough you can get some fantastic photos like the one above from reserve regular Ian Nicol. If anyone else has photos you would like to see on this blog then please do send them to The Warden

Warnham LNR - A Guernsey Gull

Gadwall - P. Shergold

Gadwall - P. Shergold

It has been pretty slow going at Warnham over the past few days but last night (28th Nov) produced 4 Little Egrets which came in to roost in the heronry. We regualrly have birds that winter with us and are mainly seen in the early morning and late evening however four birds is exceptional for us this early into the winter period.

Paul Shergold took some fantastic pictures of the pair of Gadwall which have been around the Reserve for a while now, however they are quite often on the golfcourse lakes or at the scrapes at the north end of the Reserve. Other highlights have mainly come from the wildfowl front with upto 23 Teal, several Shoveler, Pochard and an ever growing flock of Tufted Duck are now common place.

Herring Gull (1HN7) - Warnham LNR

The Millpond finally froze over this morning with the temperature reaching -5°C this as always meant there was a good collection of Gulls coming in to bath and rest on the ice. In amongst the gulls today was a colour-ringed bird which was ringed as an adult female in 2013 at Chouet Landfill site in Guernsey on the 23rd May 2013. It is quite amazing the distance the gulls we take for granted travel between feeding and breeding sites. This is of obvious note but what is most interesting is that this bird was also seen at at Warnham LNR on the 19/01/2015 so presumably this bird is accustomed to feeding at landfill sites and may well be using Warnham LNR and the nearby Warnham Landfill site for its wintering area. It is a fascinating story and look into a birds life, I wonder where the bird is summering, I suspect we will never know! For more information about the gull ringing which takes place in the Channel Islands why not check out the ringing groups very own website: http://guernseygulls.blogspot.co.uk/ 

Below is a map of the distance and direction that the Herring Gull has travelled:

1HN7 - Journey from Guernsey

Latest News from Southwater & Warnham LNR

Slow-worm - S. Cocker

Slow-worm - S. Cocker

Slow-worm - S. Cocker

Now the kids have gone back to school the weather starts to play its nasty trick and come out sunny again. It seems to happy every September that as soon as the autumn term start the Indian summer arrives and baths us and the wildlife in warm sunshine. Sue Cocker made the most of the last of the summer weather when she came across this lovely Slow-worm at Southwater Quarry.

Wasp Spider - Warnham LNR

Exciting news came through at the weekend when a single female Wasp Spider was found on Mill Meadow at Warnham. This is brilliant news for us as there has not been a sighting since the 1st August 2006. We have no idea where she has come from but fingers crossed it might be the start of another colony, especially as the colony at Southwater now seems to have all but died out.



Staying at Warnham it is nearly time that the five British White Cattle are to move to pasture new at Chesworth Farm where they will play a vital role there in aftermath grazing the hay cut. As you might have guessed from the dumper trucks in the background we have been busy once again at the Sandpiper Scrape and have carried out some more of the wetland restoration scrapes in front of the Sandpiper Hide. Once this has been completed I will do another post to bring everyone up to date.