Out and About

Yesterday we walked up the riverbank to view the floods and saw a lot of Fieldfares and Redwings in the hedgerows.  There seem to be few berries in the hedges and as the ground is flooded it is not clear what they are finding to feed on around here.  Pied Wagtails, on the other hand were finding the conditions to their liking at the edge of the floods.

The Red-breasted Mergansers were still at Widewater today.  They were still feeding very busily, but one of the males was finding time to display to one of the females who did not seem to be too interested.  Apparently this winter displaying is quite normal and they do it so that they do not waste any time on it when they return to their breeding grounds.  There were a dozen Little Grebes again, and a Little Egret looking cool and elegant while trying to catch some lunch.

The beach defences seem to have held up well to the battering they have had over the last few weeks, but a lot of shingle has shifted and the Environment Agency is busy pushing it back up again.

Widewater

Widewater is an odd sort of place.  A long, narrow saline lagoon separated from the sea by a shingle bank, and on the landward side a mixed collection of houses with their gardens descending to the water’s edge.  On the one side suburbia, on the other, the sea: today high tide, grey and truculent.  The lagoon supports a population of birds, some resident and some visitors.  

It seems to be quite a rich habitat as there are several groups of birds actively feeding.  Up to ten Little Grebes are diving repeatedly in the water and three Red-breasted Mergansers are also feeding.  While we watch, two more arrive, a male and a ‘redhead’ (female or immature).  They fly in fast and low coming down on the water in what almost seemed like a crash landing.  The male threw his head back in a display posture a couple of times, but did not persist.  Then they both started to dive, coming up almost immediately with food which they swallowed at the surface.  A couple of Little Egrets were active in the shallows and two Redshanks prodded and poked around the edge.

Further along at Lancing Beach Green, an Environment Agency team was hard at work shifting and grading the beach shingle.  Longshore drift inexorably moves the shingle eastwards between the breakwaters and the diggers and dumper trucks move it back again.    My observation over forty years is that this activity has gradually increased in size and complexity and will become more urgent and demanding as sea levels rise.

Recent high tides and strong winds have thrown seaweed and marine debris high up the beach and this has attracted a lot of Carrion Crows.  These have acquired the trick of picking up molluscs and flying up about 10 metres and dropping them onto the shingle. It usually seems to take three or four attempts to break the shell, but the birds persist and seem to succeed more often than not.  I do not recall seeing, or hearing of, Carrion Crows behaving like this in other areas.  But they are smart birds and learn quickly.