NORTH DOWNS & BEYOND

Back in the mid-1970s one of my regular haunts was Pagham Harbour (above), courtesy of a train and bus ride. I tried to visit once a month, sometimes twice, and can safely say that it became a special place for me. Over the years the visits became infrequent, and until today had last made the trip in 2010. Another was therefore long overdue. It was quite an emotional day. I arrived at 05.30hrs accompanied by a light that was ethereal. A clear azure sky turned water and wet mud into liquid mercury and silver, the stillness amplifying the cries of the nesting gulls and terns across the harbour. Throughout the visit I was serenaded by an urgent murmur coming from the colony, on two occasions being startled by the birds as they were spooked, a sudden roar, not unlike a jet aircraft, which died as quickly as it began. Mediterranean Gulls, Sandwich, Common and Little Terns patrolled the water between harbour and sea, sharing the skies with the ubiquitous Black-headed. A Peregrine hunted out ...

Some of you with a good memory may remember that last year I began a series of posts looking back at my earliest birding experiences. I got up to the late summer of 1976.  Part 13: August – September 1976 I had returned from a fortnight’s birding in Suffolk with enough ornithological memories to last an age, but all they did was to make me want to create more of them – and that meant more time birding! The day after unpacking my rucksack and filling my parents washing machine with dirty clothing, I was being picked up by Dave Eland to visit Pagham Harbour, in the company of Mike Netherwood and Nick Gardner. On the journey to the coast I bored them rigid with my tales from Suffolk, which they kindly listened to and made all the right noises in all the right places. There were plenty of migrants on the Sussex coast that day, even though the hot, sunny and calm weather of the past few weeks had continued. The churchyard at Church Norton was brimming with Spotted Flycatchers...

Part 12 - April - July 1976 On returning to Beddington SF, the spring passage was well underway. On April 18 th the scratchy, agitated song of a Sedge Warbler greeted me, along with a pair of displaying Redshank, vying for attention with several pairs of tumbling Lapwings – these birds dominated the soundtrack to my sewage farm days during this period. Two days later, both a Little Ringed Plover and a Corn Bunting were newly arrived. Three visits were made to Pagham Harbour, the lure of the coast and its avian promise too much to resist. Garganey, Spotted Redshank, Whimbrel, Greenshank and Common Redstart were all seen, but it was a single Little Tern that stole the show. Up to twenty were present, flying like clockwork toys along the beach, this being accentuated by their ‘cartoon-like’ chattering, but one tern in particular had taken a liking to a ditch parallel to the shoreline at Church Norton. It patrolled this thin ribbon of water as I sat on an earth bank, just f...

Part 10 -   March 1976   Pagham Harbour became a frequent place of ornithological pilgrimage. Conveniently, a train ran from Sutton to Chichester, where a bus would then take you to Sidlesham Ferry, a virtual gateway to the harbour and coast. The only downside to this method of transport was that the first train from Sutton did not leave until 09.00hrs, which meant a lunchtime arrival at Sidlesham – this restricted birding time, especially in the winter months. The southbound train journey was enjoyable, as the route passed through picturesque countryside   - including the levels at Arundel – where the odd good bird, such as Short-eared Owl and Bewick’s Swan were seen from the moving train. Once on the bus, expectation levels steadily grew, and by the time that Sidlesham Ferry came into view I was practically beside myself with excitement. I would normally take the same route. An initial scan of the ferry pool would be a lengthy affair. This smallish water body and it...

Part 6: September - October 1975  The Epsom RSPB Group held a number of field trips throughout the year, and after my successful Epsom Common excursion with them in May, I had booked myself on a further two, both to well-known sites that promised me more avian wonder. The first was in early October, to Pagham Harbour. I was picked up by car from Cheam Village, part of a convoy that made its collective way down to the West Sussex coast. The vehicles all reconvened at the Sidlesham Ferry Visitor Centre. This was just off from the harbour itself, close to a sizeable pool, viewable from a raised pavement that ran along its southern edge, butting onto the Selsey road. The water was dotted with muddy islands, with exposed mud just below were we stood. This was being criss-crossed by a number of feeding waders, at incredibly close range. I was able to examine the birds in feather-by-feather detail. My fellow-companions now showed me what experience can do, as they pointed out to me t...

What draws us to certain places? Why do we end up birding/walking where we do? Is it purely convenience, or is there more to it than that? My first locality that actually meant something to me was Beddington SF. I've posted about my early allegience plenty of times before. Even though the old place has gone forever (currently masquerading as a landfill site being systematically raped of its wildlife value), it does exist in my memory and I frequently go there still, via the power of recall. On the surface why would anybody want to keep returning to a place covered in liquid shit, but return I did. To my mid-teen self I felt as if I was being allowed access into a magical place, entrance by permit, ornithological history already in place and welcoming me to continue in building it further. The old brick outhouses, dyke system, elm-lined lanes, hedgerows and meadows were already being removed when I first visited, but the feeling of being present in the past was very strong and mo...

In my mid-to-late teens, pre-car and in my birding dawn, I forged a bond with a lovely part of West Sussex - that of Pagham Harbour. It was my regular coastal haunt mainly because I could reach it by public transport. In those days you could catch a train from Sutton to Chichester, where I then walked across the road to get a bus that, after half-an-hour of twisting country roads, dropped me off at Sidlesham Ferry. My fellow birders would normally be a combination of the Greenway brothers, Paul Butler, Nick Gardner and Stuart Holdsworth. Sometimes I would cadge a lift with Dave Eland, which meant that the inconvenience of public transport was dispensed with. although I always found the train journey in particular enjoyable - happy memories of Bewick's Swans and Short-eared Owl in the Amberley area (and, of course, I had an ongoing list for this particular journey). My first visit was on a dull and drizzly early October afternoon in 1975. I had five lifers - Grey Plover, Pintail...