Friday 10th July - Knepp and Pagham

- July 10, 2020

Today I arranged to visit Knepp with Jenny and Tim to try to see the white storks which have been nesting there and also perhaps a little owl as they had been reported there recently.

When we arrived at Knepp we were joined by Jenny's friend Becky who was hoping to see turtle doves there.

Our first stop was at the precise location on the path from where Jenny and Tim had previously seen a little owl and within a couple of minutes I managed to spot the bird sitting in a tree about 50 metres away.

We took some photos and then headed on towards an area where turtle doves had been heard in the last few days. Before we reached that area Becky spotted an unusual looking butterfly which turned out to be a purple hairstreak and several other walkers were interested to see what we were looking at. Unfortunately we were not successful in finding the turtle doves at the expected area and so we left Becky at this point as she continued her search and we retraced our steps and made our way towards the white stork nesting area.

When we arrived the white stork chicks were sitting low down in the nest with just the top of their heads visible but we waited for a while until finally one of the chicks stood up and was able to be seen clearly.

After taking some photos we set off back to the car park and along the way we saw some adult storks in flight. Jenny then had an unfortunate accident when she stepped back from the path to get out of the way of a man in a van who was just about to drive off in her direction but she lost her footing and fell backwards through some vegetation into a ditch which was about 4 feet below the path. Luckily the vegetation cushioned her fall and there were no rocks in the ditch as she could have suffered serious damage but she ended up in water and struggled to get up as she had her scope on her back which was weighing her down. In fact the only physical damage was to her hands as a result of coming into contact with some stinging nettles in the ditch but she was feeling uncomfortable after sitting in the water. Luckily for her no one was filming the incident so she will not be appearing on you've been framed!

One unexpected bonus for me at Knepp was a year tick in the form of a yellowhammer which had been spotted by some other walkers there who asked us if we knew what the bird was that they were looking at.

After leaving Knepp we then decided to move on to Pagham to try to see some terns as I had only seen common terns so far this year. As usual, Pagham did not disappoint as there were both sandwich and little terns there and also another year tick for me was a greenshank which was wading in the water.

So another enjoyable and successful day was had and we provisionally agreed that we would visit Oare Marshes on our next trip.