Walk 09 March 2024

Ten of us met on a morning finer and warmer than expected and soon our attention was drawn to a Wren singing loudly from beside the path. Until we leave the buildings and bushes of the village and holiday park, Wrens are singing all around but usually tucked away in the undergrowth. This one was sitting out in the open, however, giving us the chance to appreciate the rich reddish-brown and fine barring of its plumage, its fine, sharp bill. It’s another of those common birds (right across the UK, right across the Northern Hemisphere, in fact) at which we too rarely take a good look.  

Not long afterwards, by the Salt Pool, another Wren shot across the path in front of us and dived into the brambles, quickly followed by another tiny bird, though a green one. It was a Goldcrest, rather out of place there and, while many Goldcrests in the temperate UK stay in one place, others move south for the winter while yet more leave cold continental forests, cross the North Sea and may pass further south. One ringed bird was recovered I the Russian Baltic. So, this one might have been a local wanderer, or returning further north in England, or even facing a longer sea crossing, in and out of the wave troughs. At any rate, it gave the runaround to Xavier as he tried to get a photo. 

At this point we got a message from another Friend that he’d seen a Spotted Redshank at the far end of the Salt Pool, an individual that has been around for a few months but is not always easy to find. They breed right across the high arctic and most winter in central Africa, but some save themselves the trouble of several thousand km of flight by staying much further north. A couple of hundred might be scattered across the UK and maybe ten in Sussex. Much paler than Common Redshank, which helpfully kept close for comparison, Spotted Redshank is grey above, rather than brown, and white below, with a clear pale supercilium. It’s more slender, has a distinctly different flight pattern and an easy-to-learn call.  

Back at Flat Beach, the high tide roost of waders crammed on the remaining shingle islands comprised twelve species while a similar range of wildfowl were on show, including still large numbers of Pintail. Rather distant were three resting Sandwich Terns, having just arrived from wintering areas off W Africa. A few have taken to staying in W Sussex during the colder months but have yet to favour this area. How many remain to breed this year at Rye Harbour remains to be seen. 

At the start of the walk each person had predicted how many species we might find. The highest guess was 50 but we ended up with 63, on a lovely morning when star of the show was the Spotted Redshank, a new bird for everyone.

(Bird photos – Xavier Marrs)

Walk 01 Jan 2024

It was with a sense of relief that we could greet the New Year birds without roaring wind or hammering rain! About 27 Friends met up in the car park for a circuit around Flat Beach led by James, who warned us that we’d not be allowed home for lunch until at least 50 species had been found.

Hardly out of the car park, we noticed a couple of bigger birds with Starlings in the tree-tops – Fieldfares. This winter thrush comes down in the evening to roost at Castle Water after a day spent foraging windfalls in hinterland orchards but is rarely seen around the village. A single Mistle Thrush also rattled over – no cheering song this time.

Very quickly we found a flock of Brent Geese close to the path, then more flew in to join them till there were maybe 70 – an exceptionally large number for the reserve. Out on the horizon, however, long lines were passing up-Channel, already shifting back towards Siberia – a tiny fraction of the 91,000 which winter in Britain. Rye Harbour lacks the estuarine Eelgrass which is their preferred food so we’re lucky to have a small group which makes do with the saltmarsh.

Also present in exceptional numbers are Pintail, of which around 80 have recently been counted. Their distinctive, attenuated silhouettes and the white necks of the drakes could easily be picked out in flight, even when among many hundreds of other Mallard, Wigeon, Shoveler & Teal taking flight at the arrival of a Marsh Harrier high overhead.

Two uncommon birds were close to the path: the long-staying Spoonbill, easy enough to pick out but often not doing much, and a female Red-breasted Merganser preening on the water’s edge.

 Beyond them the islands were starting to get crowded with waders: Oystercatchers, Dunlin, Sanderling, Grey Plover pushed off their foreshore feeding grounds where they were kept on the move by holidaying humans before being evicted by the incoming tide. As we walked along the Haul Road, silvery mixed flocks were rushing in over our heads and a group of Golden Plovers – probably not from the beach – included an individual with belly already dappled dark with breeding plumage.

As usual there were dozens of Skylarks, several Stonechats, a few Meadow Pipits (and much-too-subtle Rock Pipits along the riverside), but once out on the shingle you leave behind many familiar species and even back towards the village we failed to track down Blue or Great Tits.

We had a competition for who could most closely guess the number of species noticed by at least two of the group. Two people guessed correctly that it had come out to 53 but no sooner had the group dispersed than a Sparrowhawk was hassled by a Magpie over the golf course and then the presence was flagged of a Golden Pheasant on the grass close to the reserve gate! This glowing red and yellow bird, escaped from a nearby collection, had been noticed previously in the car park. Not from round here, as they say, but nonetheless an unexpected explosion of colour on an already darkening lunch time.

Walk 11 Nov 2023

Eleven of us turned up to enjoy this month’s beautifully sunny and warm walk around Flat Beach. We had already enjoyed views of a Spoonbill sweeping the shallow water of a pool on the saltmarsh when we came across a Dartford Warbler in the brambles at Cuckoo Corner. One or two of these little heathland birds winter on the reserve in most years though it’s not clear where they come from. Not Dartford, certainly, though that’s where the first type-specimens were “collected” (ie shot) in the late 18^th century. (Actually it was Bexleyheath, at that time a desolate area still frequented by highwaymen.) The nearest few pairs breed not far away at Hastings Country Park.

Dartford Warblers are long-tailed, skulking scrub-birds, usually hard to see well and they either hide or flit from bush to dense bush but we didn’t have to wait too long before it perched up on a Hawthorn, showing off its grey-brown upper-parts, deep pink breast and red eye in the sunshine.

This and the spoonbill were new species for some on the walk and we then searched for – but failed to find – something even scarcer: a Grey Phalarope which had been present for the previous two days. This is an arctic-breeding wader which winters well out in the Atlantic but was one of many oceanic birds driven onshore by recent storms. It had been on a flooded field which remains unnamed on the Picturemaps Tea-towel on sale in the Discovery Centre (on which all other known sites are identified). It has been suggested that the adjacent “Pool With No Name” might be called the “Sand Martin Pool” on account of the wall-with-holes installed there years ago to encourage them to nest. However, they have never shown it any interest and it’s now completely underwater.

We don’t just concentrate on scarce species; we saw a lot of other birds – more than 50 species – including several Stonechats, a Kingfisher and hundreds of varied waterbirds, all of which noisily took flight at the detonation of the 11 o’clock Armistice Day maroon.