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!

Spoonbils at Pagham

We saw this pair of Spoonbills in Bremere Rife in the northeastern corner of Pagham Harbour.  The intrusion by the rather stroppy-looking Little Egret was quite unexpected.  It strode up as if intending to see them off and the decided that it had bitten off more than it could chew and flew away.  Apparently there were three Spoonbills in and around the area at the time.  One of these had rings and it was thought that they had come from Belgium.  This was our second sighting of Spoonbills ever in Britain.  The first time was last year at Church Norton where we saw just one.  

Pagham Beach closed after sea defences breached

I have just seen a report on the BBC website of a breach in sea defences near the spot that I wrote about in my blog of 30 December 2013.  See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-25611938 for more details.

Pagham Harbour

We could hear the Brent Geese as we approached the hedge that screens off the northern corner of the harbour long before we could see them.  They maintained an excitable chatter as groups of them started to take off and rise above our heads in angled lines and fly low towards the golf course, presumably planning to graze on the fairways.  More and more rose up and passed over until, when we arrived at a point where we could get a clear view of the mud flats, only a few remained.  The tide was low and a few remained on the edge of the channel where water was still flowing down.  

Over on the great expanse of mud that constitutes the northern end of the harbour area there were great flocks of Lapwings and Golden Plover.  There were perhaps several hundred Shelduck scattered about, some Teal and Wigeon, mostly at the edge of the channel and a couple of Pintail.    A few were actively feeding, most just hanging out.  About 130 Black-tailed Godwits were lined up with their backs to us most with heads tucked under their wings and standing on one leg.  

For more photos of Pagham Harbour see: http://www.flickr.com/photos/112963374@N07/11689415403