Ferring, Groyne No.4

No apologies for revisiting my local patch. After a miserable start to the day with torrential rain and westerly gales a break in the weather gave early afternoon sunshine but the high winds remained, a perfect time for a walk. At Ferring the shingle is high, the longshore drift has deposited several extra feet of beach and the sand just below the shingle line seems much more extensive. Perhaps the winter storms will take much of it away, probably to Brighton and beyond. I guess most of this has been eroded from Selsey, Pagham and Climping, probably half of Trevor's garden!



Shingle and groynes as far as the eye can see



Groyne No.4 - Perfect shorebird habitat

On the beach there were few birds, just  Turnstones, Sanderlings, Ringed Plovers and Dunlin. With the incoming tide being pushed rapidly up the beach by the wind the Ringed Plovers left early and were settled down in a sparsely populated gull roost, hunkered down in the freshly ploughed stubble.

These beach birds are hardy souls and don't give up what remains of the beach readily. This makes them approachable, just find the highest point on the sand, and as the tide rises they will come to you - so pressing is the need to maximise feeding time. Only when the sand is finally covered do they take to the shingle roost. The patttern is always the same - Turnstones roost in the seaweed remains higher up the beach and the Sanderlings take the lowest shingle.

Following the previous posting about the beach I was asked to keep an eye out for ringed birds, alas nothing this time, but it is much more difficult than colour ringed Godwits. Birds offshore were few, just a couple of Cormorants battling west against the wind and two optimistic Sandwich Terns looking for snacks among the numerous windsurfers.

 Red-backed or Black-bellied Sandpiper



Turnstones still looking 'scruffy'




Flying into the gull roost