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Pagham Birder: The Blog

A regular account of the birds seen mainly on and around Pagham Spit, the Lagoon and the North Wall plus other birding exploits from time to time.
Any news of interest regarding the ongoing erosion problems on Pagham Beach will, from now on, be shown on my other blog together with general beach photos.. Click on the link... Pagham Beach Blog on this page.

Monday, October 22, 2012

An unfortunate Ouzel hunt.

Having just returned from a non birding week in France I noticed on the SOS web site that Ring Ouzels have been showing well at Cissbury and I have been missing them.( I have not even got one photo of this species to date!) It dawned clear in Pagham so an early start saw me on the hill at 8.30......in thick fog! Wandered about looking for the Yew tree and eventually found it...Song Thrushes, Blackbirds and  a Bullfinch and then the unmistakable 'chack chack' of several Ring Ouzels. The fog was pretty thick so I had to get close to even see them and then  they seemed very 'skittish'. Alas, just 3 distant silhouettes of  'probable Ouzels ...I wont even show them here! I then got totally disorientated in the fog and headed back to where I thought the car was parked and thanks to a very helpful walker discovered I had gone in  totally the wrong direction and I was way off course!

Returned to Pagham and found a Wheatear on the foreshore together with 3 Meadow Pipits and 3 Chiifs in the bushes.

There had obviously been a change of wind direction whilst I'd been away as further very serious erosion has scoured the beach and several properties came very close to being flooded. Apparently, an emergency meeting with councilors and the local MP had been convened at short notice and was held  on the beach.....lets hope we see some action VERY soon!

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