Late Summer at Pulborough Brooks

We spend a lot of time at Pulborough Brooks but not, for some reason, much time late in the summer. It has an unsettlingly different feel. The breeding season is largely over, and so the birds are quieter and less conspicuous than normal. It wasn't that the reserve felt in anyway dead, just quieter. As if a lot of the wildlife had gone on holiday, too.

That's not to say that we weren't treated to inspect, butterflies and damselflies. There were plenty of those. But, for a reserve run by a society for the preservation of birds, they were decidedly elusive. In one hid, there was an RSPB staff member, having his lunch, and more than willing to share his lack of success seeing much over the past few h0urs.

None of this stopped, or even slowed, the girls. Long gone are the days when a complete loop would tire them out and necessitate a few breaks along the way. No, they were laughing and joking and playing around with each other — and a friend of the eldest's that was along for the day — that I had to calm them down as we approached hides, or slightly forlorn parties of bird watchers.

By the time we were done, they'd worked up enough of an appetite to make an assault on the café — and then retire to the playground outside. I'd become to think that the eldest, juts pre-teen as she is these days, might have been moving beyond them, but no. She, her friend and her sister happily played for far longer than I expected.

She may be in the late summer of her childhood, but the teenage years are not quite upon us yet…