Bosham Channel, Guided Birdwatching September 2021

An early autumn walk in Chichester Harbour started with an unexpected sighting. Where a small stream enters the harbour in Bosham village a water vole sat low in a shrub and nibbled away at the foliage unperturbed by us onlookers.

Water Vole.

We may have overlooked the water vole had it not been for a kingfisher that previously flew up this section of stream. After a while of watching the vole it dropped in the water and swam ashore where we lost it from sight. A bright blue flash flew away from us, it turned out the kingfisher had been sitting on a sluice gate under our feet but obscured from view the entire time.

Wading birds were beginning to return, in the first section of the harbour we saw a few species as well as grey herons and little egrets looking for their next meal.

Oystercatcher, Turnstone, Grey Heron and Little Egret.

Rounding the corner into the main channel a more diverse mix of waders were seen, including a few passage migrants such as a common sandpiper. In this patch of the harbour some of the wetland bird species get used to people walking by enabling close up views. An example of this was a confiding whimbrel happily feeding by the receding water, fuelling up during its autumn migration.

Whimbrel.

A favoured meal of whimbrels, and curlews too for that matter, is crabs. This time however it was a black-headed gull that found the crab. It had a bit of a time dealing with the unfortunate crustacean, but eventually managed to get the crab down.

Black-headed Gull.

Some small waders were found roosting amongst the seaweed. One of the individuals was a juvenile knot. During the winter this is a relatively common species in areas of the harbour, but they don't seem to occur very often in this particular channel, making this a nice find during the walk. In addition to the knot there were dunlin and ringed plovers using this area.

Knot (bottom left), Ringed Plover (top middle), and Dunlin (bottom right).

Walking up the channel a wheatear posed delightfully, as they often do, on the rocks of a sea defence wall.

In total 52 bird species were recorded during the walk. Photos were taken and provided by Les Phillips. If you would like to attend a walk such as this one, check out the Events page on this website for upcoming dates, here. Or to stand the best chance of spaces being available join my mailing list by emailing me at: baggaleyhugh@gmail.com You will receive a monthly email with the upcoming events prior to their publication on this site.

- Hugh Baggaley