Pagham Harbour Local Nature Reserve

We're working hard to make our nature reserves safe and ready for our staff, visitors and wildlife. Many have now re-opened in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, although some facilities are not yet available. Some reserves remain closed for now. See our COVID-19 updates page for the latest information (link below).
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Address
RSPB Pagham Harbour Local Nature Reserve, Selsey Rd, Chichester PO20 7NE
Grid ref
SZ856966
We would like to remind everyone that our visitor centre, toilets and hides remain closed. Although the car park is open, please be aware it has extremely limited capacity. We urge our visitors to please stay local to your nearest reserves and greenspaces. Anyone choosing to visit should observe all current government advice around social distancing and hygiene.
 
See our updates page to see which reserves are open.

Pagham Harbour is a glorious and peaceful nature reserve, one of the few undeveloped stretches of the Sussex coast. This sheltered inlet is an internationally important wetland site for wildlife. Watch black-tailed godwits and little egrets by day, then linger when skies are clear for an amazing sunset.

Plan your visit

Opening times

Open at all times.

Entrance charges

Free entrance to RSPB members
Yes
Adults
Free but donations are very welcome.
Children
Free but donations are very welcome.

Facilities

  • Visitor centre
  • Car park
  • Toilets
  • Accessible toilets
  • Baby changing
  • Pushchair friendly
  • Refreshments
  • Picnic area
  • Binocular hire
  • Guided walks
  • Viewing point
  • Nature trails
  • Educational facilities

Accessibility

How to get here

By train

The nearest train station is Chichester, 5.5 miles away. There is a taxi rank outside Chichester station - ask to be taken to Pagham Harbour Visitor Centre, Selsey Road, Sidlesham.

To cycle from the station, turn south over the level crossing down Stockbridge Road for approximately 100m then turn left into Canal Basin. Immediately to the right is the canal path which is the start of Route 88, currently ending at the Visitor Centre. 

 

By bus

The 51 Link service from Chichester Bus Station to Selsey stops outside the Visitor Centre. The bus station is 2 minutes' walk from the train station. The journey takes 20 minutes.

By bike

By bike Route 88 from Chichester Canal Basin to the Visitor Centre. Medmerry Cycle Link connects RSPB Medmerry with RSPB Pagham Harbour.

By road

From the A27 at Chichester, take the B2145 south towards Selsey. After half a mile at the first roundabout, turn right continuing on the B2145 to Selsey (do NOT take the B2166 to Pagham village - the Visitor Centre is on the opposite side of the Harbour). Remain on the B2145 for 6 miles. The turning into the Visitor Centre car park is half a mile on from Sidlesham on the left-hand side.

Sat nav POI file: If you have a satellite navigation system that can accept POI files, please see our POI page for a download link and instructions.

Get directions from Google Maps
RSPB reserves on Google Earth

Group booking information

Groups are very welcome to visit the nature reserve and limited coach parking is available. We ask that groups book in advance by email to pagham.harbour@rspb.org.uk or by phone 01243 641508 so we can help ensure that you get the most out of your visit.

Occasionally, if there are already several visiting groups, or we're running a special event, we might suggest that you choose an alternative day, rather than find your favourite spots on the reserve busy. We may also be able to offer guided walks. 

Schools booking information

School visits to Pagham Harbour are curriculum-linked, hands-on and fun, with a wide range of habitats to explore all year round. We can accommodate up to three large classes of children per day. 

We provide all equipment – children only need to bring suitable clothing, drinks and packed lunches. Find out more on our school trip pages.

Primary sessions (approximately two hours).

  • EYFS & KS1 - Brilliant Birds
  • EYFS & KS1 - Discovering Land Minibeasts
  • EYFS & KS1 - Discovering Pond Minibeasts
  • EYFS & KS1 - Seasonal Sensory Walk
  • EYFS & KS1 - Plant Detectives
  • EYFS & KS1 - Discovering Mud Minibeasts
  • KS2 - Investigating Minibeasts
  • KS2 - Living Things And Their Habitat
  • KS2 - Pond / Mud Habitat Study
  • KS2 - Discovering Birds

Secondary sessions (programmes are customisable, designed to last all day).

  • KS3 - Geography - Fieldwork
  • KS3 - Science - Ecological Investigations and Sampling
  • KS4 - Geography – Coastal Landscapes and Management
  • KS4 - Geography - Ecosystems
  • KS4 - Science - Ecological Fieldwork Techniques
  • KS5 - Biology - Succession
  • KS5 - Geography – Coasts 

What will the weather be like?

13 degrees, Sunny day

Downloads

Helping you find your way around. PDF, 361Kb

Pagham Harbour Local Nature Reserve trail guide and map

Contact Pagham Harbour Local Nature Reserve

What will you see?

Our star species

Recent sightings

Brent goose Branta bernicla, flock flying low over wetland, Wallasea Island RSPB reserve, Essex, England

Find our about recent wildlife sightings at Pagham Harbour Local Nature Reserve.

read more

Nature spectacles

One of the highlights of summer is our tern colony on Tern Island. Take a seat at Church Norton and look out across the harbour to the flurry of activity over the island. The sound of chattering terns drifts across the languid waters mingled with the harsher squawks of the black-headed gulls, with which they share nesting rights on the island. Common, sandwich and little terns all nest on the island and it is a delight to watch these elegant seabirds fishing in the harbour, hovering briefly before diving into the water for small fish.

If you stand on Pagham Harbour's North Wall at dusk on a winters evening, you may be lucky enough to experience a true winter wildlife spectacle as hundreds of brent geese and wigeon pass overhead to graze in the fields north of the reserve. The sound of beating wings can be heard over their honks and whistles, as their sheer numbers add to the darkening gloom.

Being flanked to the east and west by sprawling urbanisation while jutting out into the English Channel, also makes our reserve a migration hotspot and it often turns up a rarity or two.

Seasonal highlights

Waders and wildfowl linger well into spring, including curlews, grey plovers, bar-tailed and black-tailed godwits, dunlins, pintails, wigeons, teals and brent geese. Smaller migrants arrive, such as sedge, reed and willow warblers, blackcaps and chiffchaffs sing in the bushes and wheatears hop about the beach.

 

Little and common terns can be seen fishing in the harbour, while lapwings feed on the scrapes at Ferry and Breach Pools. Now is the best time to enjoy the reserve’s insect life, with common blue and gatekeeper butterflies, day-flying moths, such as cinnabar and six-spot burnet, feeding along the hedgerows and dragonflies patrolling the ponds.

Regular species at Church Norton are wheatears, redstarts, spotted and pied flycatchers. Wader migration is peppered with unusual birds like little stints, curlew sandpiper and ruffs, especially on Ferry Pool. It can be easy to see 60 bird species in a day. Anything can turn up – osprey, wryneck, even honey buzzard.

Large numbers of dark-bellied brent geese, lapwings and black-tailed godwits use the harbour or surrounding fields, with a supporting cast which includes grey and golden plovers, lapwings and dunlins. Slavonian grebes are seen offshore and red-breasted mergansers in the harbour.

About Pagham Harbour Local Nature Reserve

Habitat

Roughly half of the reserve is intertidal saltmarsh and mudflats, with the remainder of the reserve consisting of farmland, copses, lagoons, reedbeds and shingle beaches.

  • Saltmarsh and mudflats: The intertidal area supports a vast number of invertebrates including ragworms, snails, shrimps and crabs which in turn form the staple diet of many wading birds that are attracted to the site in their droves. Specialist plants able to cope with the tidal influx also provide food for ducks, geese and finches.
  • Grassland and farmland: Farmland consisting mainly of permanent grass provides valuable feeding for waders at high tide and grazing for winter ducks and geese. Hedgerow and scrub offer cover, food and nest sites, while set-aside is used by ground-nesters.
  • Shingle and vegetated shingle: Breeding shorebirds, in particular little terns and ringed plovers, make shallow scrapes on the shingle spits and islands. Vegetated shingle also provides a home for yellow-horned poppy, sea kale and nationally scarce childing pink, which can only be found on two sites along the whole of the south coast.
  • Reedbed and lagoons: A mix of reedbed and fresh, salt and saline lagoons attracts a variety of birds, animals and insects.

Conservation

Working with partners and landowners, we use cattle and sheep to graze grassland and manage its water levels. This provides winter food at high tide for wildfowl such as wigeon, snipe and brent geese, and breeding sites for redshank and lapwing in the spring.

Pagham Harbour is internationally recognized as a site breeding shorebirds, in particular little terns, ringed plovers, and oystercatchers. Although we erect temporary exclusion zones to protect nesting seabirds, we also work hard and with great success to create suitable habitat on one of the harbours islands, encouraging them to nest where they are less vulnerable to disturbance.

Many birds and insects thrive in our reed beds but have different requirements depending on their species. By rotational cutting, we create a mosaic of different reed height and ages, whilst also managing the water levels, benefiting reed warblers and flame wainscot moth.

We sow a wild bird seed mix to provide food and cover throughout the year for turtle doves, yellowhammers and other farmland birds. Our scrub is now home to a variety of wildlife and we are establishing a small group of breeding nightingales for the first time on the reserve.

Partners

A partnership for people and wildlife.

Pagham Harbour is a fantastic home for nature, helped by the tremendous support of many individuals, groups and organisations. In addition to RSPB members and supporters, local community members and a tireless team of volunteers, we would particularly like to thank the following organisations and individuals for their financial support:

  • Little Tern Recovery Project is generously supported by the EU LIFE+ Nature Programme.

Other funders we'd like to thank include:

  • Mrs Mary EA Watkinson
  • Mrs MJ Crawshaw
  • The Violet Flanagan Charitable Trust
  • The John Coates Charitable Trust
  • The Bassil Shippam and Alsford Trust
  • The Steven Bloch Image of Disability Charitable Trust
  • The Patricia Routledge Charitable Trust
  • Natural England through Defra

Site information

Pagham Harbour Local Nature Reserve is one of the best places for wildlife in the UK, covering approximately 600 hectares and has LNR, SSSI, SAM, MCZ, RAMSAR and SPA status.

 The reserve also has a rich historical heritage and hides a number of visual hints to its fascinating past, including medieval forts and Selsey Tram embankment.

Latest blog posts

read our blog

Activities and events

Activities for children and families

Pagham Harbour is a great day out for all the family. Our Discovery Trail (short route) is suitable for buggies, and we have free self-guided activity sheets available every day all year round. 

During the school holidays we run special family events, from pond dipping, bug hunting and arts and crafts, to seashore safaris, mud-sifting and seasonal themed events. (Children must be accompanied by an adult.)

Leisure activities

  • Walking: As well as being a haven for wildlife, Pagham Harbour is a walker’s paradise with miles of footpaths and beautiful open countryside to get away from the hustle and bustle of modern life. A walk to the beach on a clear day is rewarded with views of Beachy Head to the east and the Isle of Wight to the west, while on a blustery day it’s a great way to blow away the cobwebs and clear your mind.

  • Photography: For photographers and artists there are opportunities and inspiration everywhere, with big open landscapes, dramatic skies and a wealth of subjects, colours, tones and textures which change from season to season and day to day. We run wildlife photography and painting workshops throughout the year if you are keen to improve your skills.

  • Star-gazing: Being an undeveloped oasis in the Sussex coastline, the night sky above our reserve is great for star gazing with stunning views of the Milky Way and other constellations – look out for our popular astronomy nights.

  • Archaelogy and history: Pagham Harbour also boasts a rich history, from Bronze Age artefacts and evidence as a Roman seaport, to the age of steam and the Second World War. There are still a number of visible reminders to the past. 

    The earliest mill found at Sidlesham was dated to 1275 with the last being built in 1755. This last tidal mill was reputed to have been one of the finest in the country with three great water wheels and eight pairs of millstones. All that remains is a rectangle of grass and low brick walls to mark the site of the mill.

    At Church Norton there is the surviving earthwork mound and ditch, remains of an 11th Century Norman ringwork castle, inside which the remains of stone buildings have been located. Traces of possible Iron Age occupation were found during excavations along with Neolithic scrapers and other worked flints.

    Also at Church Norton is St Wilfred’s Chapel. The 13th building was formerly the chancel of the much larger St Peter’s Church. It is located on or near the site of the first Cathedral of Sussex which was established by St Wilfred when he lived there for six years from AD 681.

    There are also numerous stories of smuggling and of the harbour being used as a practice firing range for aircraft during the Second World War.

    The Selsey Tram which ran between Chichester and Selsey from 1897-1935 runs through the reserve and alongside the harbour's edge between Ferry Channel and Sidlesham. This is one of our main walking routes along the embankment and still goes by the name of the ‘Tramway’. Originally, steam locomotives were used and later supplemented by petrol rail-buses. In its heyday, over 22,000 passengers used it per annum. Unfortunately due to it often breaking down, the nature of rickety rails and the laid-back style of service it was teased with nicknames such as ‘The Sidlesham Snail’ and ‘The Bumpety Bump’.

Events

Saturday 18 July
Bees and Wildflowers Identification Workshop for Beginners - CANCELLED
West Sussex
Saturday 8 August
Bees and Wildflowers Identification Workshop for Beginners - CANCELLED
West Sussex
More events

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