RSPB Pagham Harbour. 23.08.21 Juvenile Cattle Egrets and an Osprey

I started my walk at the Ferry Pool. I then walked on the north side of the Ferry Channel; then along the path to Sidelsham Quay; then along the saltmarsh track (only accessible at low tide) to North Wall; on the return I walk along Mill

Black Tailed Godwits in the Ferry Pool

Shelducks, Black-Headed Gulls and Lapwings in the Ferry Pool

Lichen on brambles; path to Sidlesham Quay

Saltmarshes, Sidlesham Quay

Buzzard

RSPB Discovery Trail board 4 (Swallows)

Swallows in flight above the Sidlesham salt marshes

Sea Asters, which are confined to salt marshes, with a Drone-fly, a honey-bee mimic hoverfly. Sea Asters are rare and flower in August; Drone Hoverflies are very common. I was looking for and couldn't find was a Sea Aster mining bee, which is a very rare solitary bee and is named after its preferred food source; and emerges when the Sea Asters blossom.

Sea Asters on the salt marshes

Church Norton on the distance

An Osprey

Little Egrets in flight near the North Wall

A Cattle Egret near cattle; North Wall, Halsey Farm

A Little Egret, at Halsey Farm

Rife at Halsey Farm (wet of North Wall)

Juvenile Little Egrets and Cattle Egrets in the heronry at the North Wall

Little and Cattle Egrets on the salt marsh south of the North Wall

Juvenile Little Egrets and Cattle Egrets in the heronry at the North Wall

Song Thrush; path back to Sidlesham from North Wall

Black Bird

Juvenile Moorhen and Mallards; old Mill pool at Sidlesham Quay

A juvenile Whitethroat, on the path on the north side of the Ferry Channel

A juvenile Redshank (I thought, for a bit, that this might be a Vagrant Lesser Yellowlegs; but it isn't). Ferry Channel

Mute Swan, Ferry Channel

A "manky" Mallard

A Curlew

The posts of the former bridge; carrying the Selsey Railway

West Sussex Railway was a standard gaugelight railway between Chichester to Selsey, in West Sussex. The line, which opened in 1897, was also known as Hundred of Manhood and Selsey Tramway. It was opened as a rail tramway in order to avoid having to comply with regulations that managed conventional railways in the United Kingdom. The line was built under the auspices of the light railway entrepreneur, Colonel Stephens, who would later manage the line as the West Sussex Railway (Tramway Section).

In December 1910 the line was inundated (flooded by seawater) when an embankment failed at Pagham Harbour. It was not reinstated so work had to be carried out to raise the line above the waters. Although the line was successful in the decades before the First World War, it suffered financially as road transport increased in the 1920s. Despite attempts to be more efficient through modernisations, such as the introduction of petroleum driven rail car services, the railway closed to all traffic in January 1935. Very little remains of the railway's infrastructure because of land redevelopment and urban expansion along its permanent way. West Sussex Railway - Wikipedia

It was also sometimes called "The Siddlesham Snail" after one of the villages having a station of that name. Sidlesham station's nameboard originally perpetuated the old spelling "Siddlesham". A song was written criticising the line which verse went "The Siddlesham snail, the Siddlesham snail, the boilers burst, she's off the rail, the Siddlesham snail!" West Sussex Railway - Wikipedia

The Selsey railway (photo from RSPB discovery board)

Cartoon from an RSPB discovery board

Juvenile Goldfinches

Ferry Pool; Black Tailed Godwits and Lapwings; evening

One of the UK's most common birds; a Woodpigeon