Wednesday13th May 2020: Celebrating freedom at Pagham

Today, with lockdown rules loosened for outdoor activities, we travelled by car to Pagham Harbour for a walk and some birdwatching.

We arrived before 8am at Ferry Pool and parked in the lay-by, as the RSPB car park and centre were closed. There were lots of summer plumaged Black-tailed Godwits feeding quite close to the road and a pair of Redshank, getting rather friendly at the edge of the pool. Towards the back, at some distance, there were a number of Avocets looking stunning and elegant in the bright morning sunlight, while scurrying busily along the muddy margins were a pair of yellow-eyed Little Ringed Plover (also getting rather friendly!) - our first of the year,  due to being curtailed in our travels by the lockdown and having no suitable habitat in our local area.

Digiscoped Avocets 

Digiscoped Little Ringed Plover

On the duck front, there were good numbers of Shelduck, a few Gadwall and of course, the inevitable Mallard.

Next we continued round to Church Norton, with terns as the target species. It was bitterly cold in this exposed spot, with a chilly north-easterly wind, but there was an abundance of birds noisily feeding and roosting on Tern Island. From the beach we were able to identify Sandwich Terns, large and shaggy headed, Common Terns with red bills (too far away to see the black tips) and matching red legs, and tiny yellow-billed Little Terns, looking extremely diminutive next to the Sandwich Terns. Suddenly, all the birds flew up calling raucously in alarm as a brown raptor shot across, probably a Sparrowhawk. The tide was low and there was little other bird life to be seen here, so we moved on to our next destination.

We drove to Halsey’s farm and walked along a public footpath, then across the marshy fields to North Wall. Common Whitethroat were singing from the shrubby hedgerows and many Swifts were passing overhead. The reedbeds were busy with the song of  Reed and Sedge Warblers, testing our birdsong ID skills, and, perhaps surprisingly, good views were had of both species. A Cuckoo called in the distance and a Blackcap burbled continuously, fooling us into believing it was a Garden Warbler till Tim managed to get his bins onto it.

Despite the adverse weather and tidal conditions we managed almost 60 species across the day, as well as some lovely open scenery and soul restoring views. Magnificent. Or as Wallace and Gromit might have it A Grand Day Out’!