Birdwatching Walk – 25 February
Eventually (having found the right car park!) 14 ‘club’ bird watchers plus Carole from Chichester RSPB who kindly came along to assist, set of in a cool chilly NE breeze across the fields at Medmerry. In that coolness small birds where hard to find, and for a while our best birds were some skylarks, theirs fluttering flight and sharp call giving us clear identification. At the southern end of Medmerry the Slilt pool gave us a jolly good selection of Waders and Ducks, including Wigeon, Teal , and a good number of Brent Geese. All these birds will shortly be making the long journey north to their breeding grounds.
We also suddenly saw the dashing flight of a Dartford Warbler, it alighted on a gorse bush giving most people a good view . This bird is now starting to make this ‘newish’ reserve its home – at least 3 birds have been heard calling in separate areas on the marsh so to see one is indeed very lucky.
We walked along the back of the shingle, on a path that supposedly is going to be part of the ‘Costal Walkway’ – and it is already clearly suffering from winter storm damage. Having just read the proposals for this round Britain route it will be interesting to see how all these paths are going to be maintained! We slowly made our way back to the car park in the company of a family of stonechats that flittered from post to post in front of us. Some of the group went to Pagham Reserve for a picnic lunch. Those going for a post lunch stroll down to the hide were rewarded with a good number of birds, including Avocets, Shoveller and Black Tailed godwits. Our final ‘spot’ of the day was a Spotted Redshank, in company with a Common Redshank, so we could clearly see its longer bill and paler plumage.
Thank you everyone for your good humour and patience (bird watching can be slow at times!) Our tally was 46 birds.
And I don’t know how to tell you this – the next day (Sunday), yes the very next day, a White Tailed Eagle flew in and landed in Medmerry!! Oh well that’s birding for you!