Pagham Harbour is a natural inlet to the north-east of Selsey on the south coast of the UK. Originally an island, Selsey gets its name from Anglo-Saxon times ‘Seals-ey’, or Island of Seals.
No seals were spotted by me today, but the weather was sunny, in fact a little too warm for the long trousers and jacket I was wearing as the day went on. What Google Maps fails to articulate is that the central section is all wetlands which is submerged at high tide (11:45 on the day of visting), so you walk either East or West from the RSBP car park, which is on the West side of the harbour:
RSPB’s own map shows the walking trails, and brings home the side of the reserve - I only looped around the eastern part and that alone was a 10 mile walking loop.
Because I am stupid, I thought it would be a good idea to cart 20+kg of photographic kit and food around with me - not appreciating the distance to walk round the harbour. This went as well as you could expect, and my boot decided to voice its displeasure about 75 mins walk from the car…
What a pickle. Despite being near the end of my eastbound march, it seemed prudent to hop back to the car for the spare set of ‘going home shoes’. As the camera had not even been unpacked from the bag by this point, I felt I had better get it out, having already missed the best photographic light for the day and snap what I could see - which was mostly things running away from me, or things in the extreme distance.
My bird identification skills need a lot of levelling up. I’m not sure what this flock was winging their way across the water?
After reaching the car, a change of footwear and ditching half the bag’s contents in the car, I set off south, to be greeted by the rising tide which almost cut off the path.
After which a family of Swans greeted me - at last something which was not running away as fast as possible!
I am not sure what it is with Swans lifting their feet out the water behind them like this - I have seen this quite a lot recently at various places, it does not look comfortable!
A Swan-sneeze, hopefully not bird flu?
The site contained a great number of Egrets (a mix of Little and Great I think - but I would have needed them parked up side by side to have greater confidence, and a number of Grey Herons.
The Egrets did not like me walking along the edge of the harbour, and would reposition every time I got to within 50m or so.
By this point I was rather hungry, so parked myself on one of the numerous benches around the site, to be joined by this friendly fellow.
A Dunnock (Hedge Sparrow) flew into the hedgerow beside me to briefly pose against the blue sky..
before I reached the beach front - a very stony affair with no wildlife of note visible.
That left the long trek back to the car, the legs were certainly feeling it by that point.
All in all a great site to walk around, but on the day of visiting at least not too many opportunities to get close enough to the wildlife to get decent photographs. I shall have to return at an earlier time of day I think.