Birdwatching by Boat in Chichester Harbour

Last week I had the pleasure of being a birding guide on two solar boat tours around Chichester Harbour. Birdwatching from a boat is not something I have regularly done and I enjoyed the opportunity to get a different perspective of our wintering wetland birds.

I was grateful that the boat we were on was both quiet and stable. Looking through your binoculars whilst moving around is a sure-fire route to motion sickness! On both occasions we saw a range of waders and a peregrine sitting on top of a shingle mound, gazing out upon their territory.

A highlight for me was the diving species, and in particular the red-breasted mergansers. One individual caught a pipefish close in to the boat, and we observed as the merganser struggled with this relative of the seahorse. Owing to its length the pipefish proved a difficult meal to swallow.

This encounter reminded me of another time I observed a bird catch a pipefish. On this previous occasion it was a black-headed gull that had found its dinner. The gull spent well over five minutes trying to negotiate this tube-like creature down. Both of these events made me feel quite sorry for the pipefish as they had encountered an unfortunate end. I have to say though that the captors of the pipefish can’t have had too nice a time swallowing the fish either!

With good numbers of brent geese now in for the winter their evocative sounds could be heard as we cruised around the network of channels that make up Chichester Harbour. Not too many dabbling ducks were seen although we saw both pintail and wigeon in flight, the numbers of both of these species will continue to grow throughout our wetlands at this time of year.

Brent geese. Photo courtesy of Les Phillips.

You can find out more about the boat tours on the Chichester Harbour Conservancy website.

Hugh Baggaley