Sidlesham Ferry Field and Pool near Pagham Harbour was an iconic place for birding as one of the county’s best places to see breeding, wintering, passage and roosting birds at close quarters. It even produced the occasional mega rarity. In recent years many know that the situation has declined, and plans are afoot to put to improve things.

Funding has been secured for £186k investment in the 17ha site, most of which is from a National Lottery Heritage Fund grant and other sources including SOS and Countryside Stewardship payments. There is still a relatively small gap in the funding required part of which SOS is hoping to fill through a public appeal through The Big Give’s Green Match Fund week running from noon on Tuesday, April 22 for a week, ending at noon on Tuesday, April 29. The campaign’s link is Sidlesham Ferry Pool and Field – Big Give

We are hoping to raise £8,000 to contribute to this project half from local people and members which will be pound for pound matched by £4,000 from Big Give philanthropists. Your donation would be doubled!

The project will involve:

• Creating more muddy areas around Ferry Pool and the ditch network in Ferry Field to establish a wider area for birds to feed for invertebrates, this includes breeding birds (particularly flightless wader chicks), wintering birds and those using the location as a feeding/resting ‘pitstop’ during migration. This will involve considerable earth moving by skilled contractors.
• Separating the saline water zone from the freshwater area by creating a bund using the arisings from the earthworks mentioned above to establish greater biodiversity between these habitats. Currently the saline water is encroaching into the freshwater grazing marsh area, impacting on its potential.
• Enabling easier hydrological controls within the freshwater system, to ensure they remain wetter for longer, especially later in the spring and summer when flightless wader chicks need to feed. This will be achieved by:
  –  Making the ditch network a little deeper with wider and shallower side profiles to maintain those important soft feeding areas for longer and
  –  Installing a fish friendly solar powered pump to extract fresh water from surrounding streams to top up when required. This technology has been successfully  deployed in the Netherlands and may other RSPB reserves in recent years and replaces diesel pumps and their carbon impact.
• Installing a 1.9km anti-predator fence around Sidlesham Ferry Field and Pool to protect ground nesting birds and their eggs from mammalian feeding. Fox activity in the area leads to the failure of the nests of Lapwings, Redshanks and Avocets at this site due to this predation. This year there are only two Lapwing pairs are using the site; the potential is many more. To achieve a sustainable population and replace mortality in adults, Lapwings need to produce 0.6-0.8 fledged chicks per pair per year. This site’s breeding productivity is considerably below that requirement and could be considered a population sink. The installation of such fencing immediately increases breeding productivity above the threshold. Some sites with such fencing in Kent and Essex are getting 1.4-1.8 fledged chicks per year and they are breeding in much higher densities typical of the colonial breeding of this species.

SOS have had a long association with this site. Its early members may have been part of the work party that constructed the original hide that overlooked the pool in the mid-1960s. In the late 1970s or early 1980s a £5,000 grant from SOS (partly made via a fundraising campaign to members) secured the purchase of the field by providing funding to Sussex Wildlife Trust. In 2017 a splendid new hide was constructed partly funded through a £20k grant from SOS.

Please consider giving to this appeal. Sidlesham Ferry Pool and Field – Big Give