With Mark and Elizabeth at Pagham Harbour North Wall a.m. and Arundel WWT p.m.

Sunday 22nd January 2023

The original plan was to walk from Pagham North Wall along White's Creek, past Pagham Lagoon to the spit where a snow bunting had been seen  several times recently.  Then we would return along the same path to watch the wader movement on the incoming tide.

After lunch we planned to head up to the Burgh to catch up with the short-eared owls at dusk.  As you will read later, this plan was changed and we finished up at the WWT reserve at Arundel. 

                         Pagham Harbour North Wall

There was a good selection of waders on show, the pick of which are listed below.

• My own particular favourite were the knot which we saw huddled together on the mud of White's Creek and making a very impressive show.
• There were so many pintail ducks swimming around including numerous drakes - another brilliant show this year. 
• I saw my first yellowhammers of the year in the trees by the track.
• On Pagham Lagoon there were at least 12 Mediterranean gulls and a rather splendid   drake goldeneye.

We met up with Gareth and Paul James at the lagoon and they advised us that parking at the Burgh would be a problem this afternoon.  The short-eared owl sightings recently had drawn large numbers of birders to the area with the attendant parking issues.  On the strength of this discussion we decided to go back to the North Wall, move to the nearby  Pagham Beach café (at the start of Sandy Road (PO21 4SP)) for lunch and then head out to the spit to look for the snow bunting.  If we had time we would visit the WWT reserve at Arundel.

• Mark flushed the bird and it flew into the adjacent hollow and out of sight.  Unfortunately neither Elizabeth or I managed to see it as it did this. 

WWT Arundel

We spent just over an hour here.  Most of the pools were frozen over completely so there was not much going on.

• Two very close snipe were seen from the Ramsar hide.
• Star birds however were the 2 firecrests and the single goldcrest that we encountered as we walked by the Wildlife garden.

2023 species count = 102