Hawfinches: request for information I plan to write a short paper on the Hawfinch influx into Sussex during 2017/18 and would welcome any information, not yet in BirdTrack or published on popular social media sites, on the following: Large counts. Evidence of birds on active migration. Food other than hornbeam and yew seeds. Roosting behaviour […]

Thought members and others might be interested in the following: On the 7 May BBC from 00.30 to 03.30 Radio 3 will be broadcasting a Slow Radio experience – the sounds of Nightingales recorded in a Sussex wood this April. Four musicians spent the night in the woods responding musically to the sounds of nightingales […]

…well not exactly again as it never happened last week, contrary to my previous post. There are still one or two issues I’d like to resolve before we do switch over to its new location but the actual timing of the change may be out of my control. So, as before, please be patient if […]

Over the next day or so this website will be moved from its current hosting space to a new provider. During that time you might experience some odd behaviour. Pictures in sightings or entire sightings might go missing. The site might disappear for a while. You might get a worrying-looking message telling you that the […]

We are currently carrying out a visitor survey at Warnham Local Nature Reserve and we would like your views of the Reserve. Your views will help shape the future of Horsham town’s only designated nature reserve and give us the opportunity to improve your visitor experience. It is so important to have local support for […]

The RSPB is six years into a programme of monitoring farmland birds across over thirty farms on the South Downs to see how populations respond on a landscape scale to habitat management advice. We are looking for two additional bird surveyors with good identification skills and preferably some experience of territory mapping to undertake four […]

The AGM will be at the Adastra Hall, Hassocks on 7th April at 2.30 pm. Following the formal business, which will hopefully not take too long, there will be a short refreshment break and then our President, Alan Perry, will talk about a subject dear to his heart. Alan has been leading the West Sussex Wealden Heaths’ […]

The Sussex Ornithological Society (SOS) is thrilled to announce that its publication The Birds of Sussex (2014) has been been judged the winner of the “BB/BTO Best Local Bird Atlas of the Year 2007-2017” This Award recognises the outstanding contribution that The Birds of Sussex has made to our understanding of birds in the county. The publication – known […]

New volunteers in Sussex are being sought to help to monitor national breeding woodcock numbers. Annual monitoring of roding woodcocks has taken place at a number of sites across the UK each year since 2003; a summary of the results can be found at http://www.bto.org/volunteer-surveys/woodcock-survey/results. Three visits to a site are required between 1st May […]

Now is the ideal time to sign up to take part in the BTO Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) and to come along to an informal practice session along with other volunteers. This national monitoring scheme is administered by the BTO and jointly funded by the BTO, JNCC and RSPB. It has been running since 1994 […]