Trip reports
Funton Creek
Sunday, 5 November 2006
One of the advantages of this site is that when the tide comes in there are usually plenty of duck and geese to be seen; pintail, especially, seem to like this area. With the sun shining and a slight breeze blowing from the west, we set off along the public footpath out towards Chetney Marshes. There is one species of animal that seems to thrive here - rabbits; the marsh is usually alive with them, but this morning they were absent, perhaps because last time we had a trip out to Funton a group of people were hunting them with falcons. Just as I started to explain this to the group, sure enough, as if awaiting their cue, a gang of about thirty people appeared, at least ten of whom had birds of prey on their arms (Harris hawks seem to be the favourite), whilst the others went on ahead, acting as beaters to flush out the rabbits. This must be a regular event, because rabbit numbers are definitely down. The falconers hunted across the marsh all morning, and some members of our group witnessed a couple of kills. Unfortunately, the presence of these people with their hawks caused a lot of disturbance over the landward side of the seawall, and maybe as a consequence only a few birds were seen out on the marsh, apart from very distant greylag and Canada geese.
With the tide still rising, and the waders roosting on the small islands and spits of land out in the inlet, our only clear views were of the ducks and geese that bobbed about on the slightly choppy water. After passing the rotting and rusting hulks of long-abandoned, beached water craft, numbers of roosting waders became more visible, crowded together on the sides and grass-covered tops of the shrinking islands. The light was extremely good and showed up the colours of an unexpected number of turnstone huddled together on one such diminishing islet. As often happens in these tidal conditions, the safe roosting sites the birds choose on which to daily wait out high water, become more and more precarious.
Soon we had the splendid spectacle of small flocks of waders flying in tight formation, searching for another roosting place as their island began to be overwhelmed by the ever-rising tide. Knot, dunlin and grey plover wheeled about as each vantage point disappeared beneath the waves. Bar-tailed and black-tailed godwits, redshank and a good number of avocets eventually gave up the search for a safe haven in the creek and flew off to seek a better position elsewhere. At the last count we had ten little egrets patrolling the water's edge on the far bank, in among the vocal curlew; these birds seemed less disturbed by the height of the tide. Also nice to see was a charm of goldfinches feeding on the many thistle heads not too far from our last viewpoint, before making our way back to the road.
On a rising tide at this time of year it is quite usual to see mergansers in these waters, but there was no such sighting this morning, just a couple of little grebes, one great crested grebe and a few cormorants. It could be that the numerous sailing and motor boats deterred any of the more nervous species from entering the creek. It was a lovely day, and everybody was taking advantage of the summer-like conditions which had brought out clouded yellow butterflies and a pair of dragonflies mating on the wing.