Trip reports

Pagham Harbour

Sunday, 15 February 2009

After the cold start to the year and the recent heavy snow it was a relief to us all that we had normal weather conditions for a full day of bird watching. Pagham harbour offers a variety of habitat, so a good range of birds can be found here. Our day started in the car park with a range of common birds making use of the feeders and the scrub nearby. The most confiding was a male kestrel that perched in a bush alongside the path allowing close range observation. Even after another walker disturbed the bird, it only flew to the next trees. It was here that we stopped to check a few small birds, which were a goldfinch and blue tit. Suddenly the kestrel swooped down from his perch into the long grass by the fence, emerging with a small rodent in its talons. It returned into the far side of the trees with it's prize disappearing out of site. It was only at this point that we noticed that there was a stoat in the grass at the point that the unfortunate rodent was snatched. The next venue was the Ferry Pool. Here the water level was higher than usual, limiting it's appeal to a few wigeon, teal, shelducks and shoveler. We continued to the river side where the mud was exposed by a low tide. A few redshank and teal were resident close by, while large flocks of golden plover and lapwing were seen at a distance in the main channel. A little egret and grey heron were also present. We decided to move to Church Norton where we hoped for closer inspection of the estuary birds. Brent geese were numerous feeding amongst a variety of waders. Grey plover, redshank, knot, ring plover, turnstone, dunlin, curlew and oystercatcher were all present. After careful observation a solitary bar-tailed godwit was found. Further up the river channel the cormorants were gathered to rest along with a number of greater black backed gulls. A little grebe was fishing in the channel. There had been some interesting sightings reported in previous days on the sea. After the short walk over the shingle to the beach we were rewarded with slavonian grebe, red-breasted merganser and after a walk down the beach a small raft of common scooter. After a lunch break in the local grave yard we returned to the estuary to watch the incoming tide push the birds off the last few islands. The red-breasted mergansers had come in from the sea. The last birds of the day were a group of 7 avocets that were roosting on the edge of a creek near the car park. In total we saw 60 different species which was a good total