Despite the rather dismal weather forecast of rain for most of the day, 11 of us met in the car park at RSPB Pagham Harbour.  Unusually, there were few birds around the feeders at the visitor’s centre.  However, the Ferry Pool hide made up for this with it’s assembled flocks of Lapwing, Black Headed Gull, and ducks such as Teal, Mallard, Wigeon, Shoveler, Shelduck, and Gadwall.  A couple of Avocet and a single Green Sandpiper completed the picture as a Marsh Harrier flew low over the ground and a few Skylark took to the air.

There were some Redshank in the channel opposite the Ferry Pool and moving on along the path we saw some Grey Plover, Curlew, and a lone Bar Tailed Godwit.  Also, we began to witness the sheer numbers of birds in the harbour as they swirled around in vast flocks.  As far as we could tell, they mainly consisted of Brent Geese, Lapwing, Golden Plover, and Dunlin.  Due to the potential of slippery paths and walking conditions we opted to double back towards the car park at this stage, without adding anything more to our list, and then drove to Church Norton.  Siskin and Goldfinch were spotted in the Alder trees by the moat, and a male Linnet stayed visible as we headed to the beach.   The sea was quite rough which made sea-watching difficult, as the birds bobbed up and down and in and out of sight, but we were able to pick out distant Gannets, a pair of Red Breasted Merganser, and some Turnstone working the shoreline close to us.  We then headed for the shelter of some nearby benches for our lunch whilst watching the cast of Grey Plover, Lapwing, and busy Dunlin before us.  A distant Buzzard soared around at one point creating panic among the waders. Looking over the field behind the hide we added Green Woodpecker to our list for the day.

Some of our party chose to head for home at this point but a smaller group of us had a wander around the Churchyard of St Wilfred’s Chapel (with it’s stained-glass window of birds and animals of the harbour).  A group of Starling buzzed and chatted away in a tree, and a chirpy Robin hopped around the gravestones.  An adjacent field contained a Buzzard, a Kestrel, and a couple of Mistle Thrush.  Throughout the day we had seen numerous Gulls, including Black Headed, Herring, and Greater Black Backed, and Corvids such as Jackdaw, Carrion Crow and Magpie.  Of course there had been Blue Tit, Great Tit, Long Tailed Tit, Dunnock and assorted Cormorants throughout, bringing a grand total of 50 species for the day, with only a few brief light showers to dampen our enthusiasm along the way.