Pagham Harbour

Our arrival at Church Lane, Pagham was greeted by some very noisy House Sparrows and a couple of cooing Collared Doves.  There were quite a lot of blackbirds about too, mostly males.  The tide was right out and there was a thick frost and a perfectly blue sky.  The first birds we saw in the harbour were a couple of Black-tailed Godwits.  Down the west side there were Teal and Wigeon, about 100 Shelduck, a few Pintail, Dunlin, Redshank and Grey Plover.  A large flock of Brent Geese flew in at one point making a tremendous fuss and I put up a Snipe from the marsh edge.

Brent Geese in the western channel

Down on the lagoon there were Tufted Duck, Little Grebe, and, best of all a couple of Pochard, the numbers of which have been in decline in recent years, so it was nice to see them here.  A fox was among the reeds on the edge of the lagoon, curled up, tail wrapped around nose, fast asleep.

There was little on the beach.  About 25 Cormorants on the wreck offshore had to vacate while we watched as the tide come in and submerged their perch.  A single Great-crested Grebe rode the waves further out.  There were a few Oystercatchers and some Turnstones around and lots more - about 25 of the latter on the shingle of the harbour mouth lagoon.  They seemed oblivious to us just a few yards away as they lived up to their name, turning over the pebbles, making a continuous rattling noise.

The tide was running in rapidly now and we walked up to where the old hide used to be.  A male Goosander was being washed in on the flowing water while energetically preening.  Later he met up with a female, which might have been the reason for all of the preening activity.

On the way back we saw six Reed Buntings and the main interest on the North Wall were Black-tailed Godwits in the fields with a few Curlew and the afternoon rounded of nicely with a brief glimpse of a Kingfisher nipping over the top of a sluice.

Altogether we saw 40 species of birds.  A lovely day!