Reporting Your Sightings

To help keep this page as up-to-date and informative as possible, please send your sightings and any pictures taken onsite (please see 'Guidelines for submissions' on the KOS Photo Gallery for details of how to resize your pics etc.) to Gordon Allison by clicking here.

Autumn gives way to winter, although these days it's not unusual for many of the trees in the wood to hang on to their leaves until well into the month. But the birdlife takes on a more wintry aspect regardless - woodcock can be flushed from the sides of paths from just about anywhere; and can be seen flighting out to the surrounding land at dusk. This is also a good time to look for long-eared & barn owls leaving their day-time roosts and to witness the spectacular corvid roost in the wood. 2-4,000 jackdaws & rooks regularly gather to roost in the wood at dusk. There is usually an equally impressive pigeon roost, but this is best viewed at dawn when hundreds of wood pigeons & stock doves leave the wood.

Depending on flooding, numbers of wintering wildfowl & waders will build up during the month - wigeon, teal & lapwing are the most numerous, with smaller numbers of pintail, gadwall, shoveler, mallard and golden plover. Black-tailed godwit, ruff & dunlin can often be found on the flooded fields and there are usually green sandpiper and jack snipe present, at least until the first frosts. Birds of prey regularly seen from the reserve viewpoints include marsh & hen harriers, merlin, peregrine & sparrowhawk. 1-2 common buzzards have traditionally roosted in the wood during the winter period, but have become a bit "hit and miss" in recent years. Which is a little ironic, considering how the species has increased in the county.

The area of the reserve around the new carpark at Bromhey Farm and south of the Cooling road is a regular haunt for a variety of seed-eaters, including large flocks of corn & reed buntings, smaller numbers of tree sparrows and other species like brambling & yellowhammer. Winter thrushes are regular in this area too, and a late ring ouzel is a good possibility. The buildings at Bromhey can sometimes host a black redstart. November is the best month for records of scarce winter passerines like twite, snow & Lapland buntings and the only reserve record of goosander was a single in November 1996.

27th: 1 buzzard, siskin (N. Hill)

26th: 1 merlin, 1 barn owl, 1 woodcock (N. Hill)

21st: 1 Cetti's warbler, 1 buzzard, 1 marsh harrier, 3 black-tailed godwit, 2 little egret, 2 redpoll, 19 fieldfare, 10 redwing, 1 snipe (N. Hill)

18th: 1 buzzard, redwing, fieldfare (N. Hill)

16th: 4 redpoll, fieldfare (N. Hill)

7th: 2 sparrowhawk (N. Hill)

6th: 1 merlin (N. Hill)

2nd: report of a raven again (N. Hill)