Frontline Stories from Global Leaders in Bird Research, Conservation and Wildlife Broadcasting

Avian Odyssey is a major bird research and conservation event hosted by the Natural History Museum (NHM) in partnership with the British Ornithologists’ Club (BOC) and other leading organisations.

Originating as regional collaborations nearly fifteen years ago, it has since grown into a global conference featuring partners like the RSPB, BirdLife International, and the BTO.

This year’s programme includes nine talks on pressing issues such as plastics in the environment, the spread of Usutu virus, citizen science in China, and vulture conservation in Nigeria.

Highlights include RSPB CEO Beccy Speight’s keynote address and insights from BBC Natural History producer Giles Badger.

When: Saturday 20 September 2025

Where: Flett Theatre (Exhibition Road Entrance), Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London, SW7 5BD.

Tickets Prices:

• Standard In-person Adult Admission Price (18+): £10
• Concession In-person Ticket Admission Price: £7 (Children 13+, Student In-person (full-time education, Universal/Pension Credit).
• Disabled In-person Companion: Free
• Virtual (Live Stream) Online Ticket: £5

Website, info and tickets: here

Three new islands on the lagoon

New low point winding from the lagoon to the solar pump location

New scrape created on the wetland

We are pleased to share an update on the work at the Ferry Pool and Fields at Pagham Harbour provided by Downs to Sea.

The work so far
The Downs to the Sea project on Ferry Field is now well underway and is making great progress. Works began on 11th August and after only a few weeks, a huge amount had been achieved.

The contractors started by creating a new, shallow channel. This channel will connect the new solar pump to the lagoon, allowing water to be channelled to the lagoon as required. This will provide an input of freshwater to the lagoon, to allow staff to keep the lagoon at the correct water level and also the required salinity.

3 new islands have been created in the lagoon. 2 of these were simple to make, but the third provided quite a challenge. Even with the lagoon being the driest it has been in a long time, the area closest to the road was still too wet to hold the weight of a digger. We have discovered there is about 1.5m of silt in this area which has built up over years of flooding, so even with special bog mats to spread the weight of the digger, they could not reach this area. As a result, we worked closely with the contractors and our ecologists to come up with an alternative location for the third island. This means the island has been created in a location that could be accessed by the digger but will still be beneficial to wildlife. The gentle profile of the island edges will provide a lovely muddy edge and the non-linear shapes of the island will create sheltered areas. This will create ideal habitat for waders like Avocet to build their nests and feed their chicks.

A new berm has been created along the bank of the Broad Rife. This is an elevated area of ground that serves two purposes. The first is to provide some protection to the Broad Rife bank against wave and wind action in the lagoon. The second is to provide a raised area for the new predator exclusion fence to sit on.

The old bund running down the centre ditch of the field has been removed. This bund sat in a low area of the field and prevented water movement. This bund is now being moved to a higher point to separate the saline lagoon area of the field from the fresh water wet grassland. This will allow a greater area of the field to be managed for breeding waders and wildfowl effectively.

New spill out areas, rills and scrapes have begun being made. These are shallow dug out areas that wind their way through the wet grassland. They have shallow graded edges, so when filled with water, they will provide muddy edges for wader chicks to feed.

What’s Next ?
The contractors will continue their progress on the new bund and the spill out areas. They will also be installing a new sluice which will hold water on the wetland. They are going to be starting to get preparatory ground works done before the new solar pump arrives in October. Works will also be starting on the new predator exclusion fence.

We will continue to provide updates as soon as they are available.

Adam Huttly

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 improve things.

Funding has been secured for £186k investment in the 17ha site. The National Lottery Heritage fund is supporting it with £108,000 through the South Downs National Park Trust’s Downs to the Sea programme. Other sources are £35,000 from Countryside Stewardship payments, £20,000 pledged from SOS’s core funds, and £10,216 from SOS’s Big Give Green Match Fund campaign. Additionally, a £5000 donation was received from Friends of Chichester Harbour.

This means the project can start almost immediately aligning with the long term vision for the area, despite the short term disturbance that will occur.

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 by 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 be aware that during this period of crucial work there will be a lot of disturbance, but the hope is that weather depending – the work can be completed in good time.

Adam Huttly

In recent years there has been a surge in popularity of birding apps, such as Birdnet and Merlin, which suggest an identification based upon the sounds or images presented to them. The use of such apps is great fun and to be encouraged since they make for excellent educational tools. However they do, fairly often, get it wrong and generate “false positives”. Because of this the SOS, in line with BTO guidelines, kindly asks users to refrain from adding any record into a database (such as iRecord, Birdtrack or eBird) which is unchecked and based solely upon an app reading.

One great advantage with Merlin is that recordings can be easily saved and stored on the app for future reference. And so the next time your device flashes up a Marsh Warbler or a Golden Oriole, remember to press the “save” button – it could make or break a fantastic record!

David Thorns

recorder@sos.org.uk