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

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

The SOS Conservation team submitted a response to the Wealden District Council draft Local Plan last year, commenting on a number of proposed development sites. Of particular concern is the Owlsbury area, which extends westwards from the A22 as far as Newick. The entire site extends to 165 hectares and the developers will be seeking planning permission for 1700 houses on the majority of the area. This is significant in that it is the first major development on the west side of the A22 (Uckfield by-pass) and presents a real danger of encroachment into a rural and bird rich area.

Despite the relative lack of public access, our records suggest that the site meets one of the criteria for designation as a Local Wildlife Site in that it supports a significant number of breeding birds which are designated as being of conservation concern. In order to have sufficient data to present a convincing case to object to the proposals when a planning application is made, it would be extremely helpful if any members can provide details of sightings over the past ten years in squares TQ4519 and TQ4619 (we have access to records already submitted via BirdTrack and eBird). Records of scarcer and Red or Amber-listed species are especially valuable, with breeding information. There is some footpath access across the site.

Please report any data to conservation@sos.org.uk

Three talks from this year’s SOS Conference are now available to watch on our YouTube channel.

David Plummer: Wildlife Photography

Mike Coates: Fenceless grazing – a game changer for conservation

Chris Hewson: BTO Cuckoo Tracking Project