On the 4th December 2017 myself and my birding friend Clackers went to see a confiding Black Guillemot at Eastbourne in East Sussex and on the way back we diverted to Pagham Harbour at the other end of the county, in what is now West Sussex, to try and see a Long tailed Duck that was to be found on a small area of water called Honer Reservoir.
Honer Reservoir is not to be found on the map as it is not a brick built structure but a large rectangular area excavated in the ground and lined with some sort of black material to keep the water from draining away. Presumably its purpose is to collect water to irrigate the surrounding large farm fields that stretch in all directions around it. Its name comes from the nearby Honer Farm.
To get to it requires about a two mile walk, first along the North Wall of Pagham Harbour, then across a large grass field protected at both ends by a stile and then another mile or so of walking along a narrow lane that runs between the farm fields, before the reservoir is found by the road, immediately next to a footpath running east.
Clackers and myself walked to the reservoir and found nothing on the water but a few Coots and one Common Pochard, which with no further hesitation flew off. The Long tailed Duck had been reported there in the morning but it had gone. We thought no more about it and cursed our misfortune.
Two days ago I saw on Twitter, a lovely and recent picture of the same Long tailed Duck on, you guessed it, Honer Reservoir. In the intervening six weeks or so the duck had apparently been an almost permanent resident on the tiny reservoir.
I resolved to go and see it as Pagham Harbour is a good day out in anybody's book and I welcome any opportunity to return to my former haunts in Sussex.
As my wife was going to meet a friend in London I had the day to myself so made a plan to go to Pagham very early on Saturday morning and arrive there at first light before the area got too crowded with birders, walkers and other weekend visitors. I need not have worried, for having neglected to check the forecast, I hadn't noted that the weather prediction for Saturday in the southern half of England was dire. Rain and low cloud was the prediction for the whole of the morning, possibly all day.
The awful reality manifested itself as I drove away from my home at 5am with small drops of rain appearing on the windscreen and by the time I was half way down the A34, heading south, it was full on rain that was splattering the windscreen. The M27 Motorway was a miasma of spray and blurred red and white vehicle lights. I was tired from my trip to Norfolk yesterday and my spirits low but a stubborn resolve kept me going. I was up and about and there was no point in going back. I could bird in the rain. True it would be uncomfortable and miserable but there was nothing I could do to change things.
Turning off the main road I noted that the rain was lighter than before and by the time I was parking in the narrow and still dark lane that led to the footpath out onto Pagham's North Wall it had all but stopped. Although it was dawn the light was appalling due to the low rain clouds and I had plenty of time to get all my wet weather clothing on before setting off on the long trudge to Honer Reservoir. Needless to say there was not a sign of anyone. I was well and truly on my own. It was seven thirty in the morning.
Fortune favours the brave, or in this case foolhardy, it is said and I noted that the rain had definitely ceased as I got to the North Wall. Maybe the weather front had passed through earlier than predicted or maybe it was just luck but it was definitely not raining. It was very wet underfoot, muddy too, drear and miserable and the walk out along the North Wall was certainly not one to contemplate if depressed. To my left vast banks of wet, grey and glistening tidal mud had been revealed by the rapidly receding tide and to my right lay the Breech Pool, an area of shallow water and dead reeds.
A party of adult Mute Swans that were on the Breech Pool, swam closer together, grunting as if inwardly snorting air, unsure about my indistinct profile walking the footpath in the half light of early morning. They took off with that same lack of grace that one observes as a jumbo jet rises from the runway. Just after lift off they slid sideways as well as forward as they sought the required uplift but finally they were under way and forming up, with necks strung out and wings singing, they swept up and away under a sky still sullied by dark grey clouds. Two Black Swans remained on the water, a surprising and exotic presence.
I crossed the first stile, currently marooned in the midst of a small lake of flood water, with difficulty, and set out over the vast waterlogged grass field in front of me, making for the stile on the far side and having to take several detours around large areas of standing water where the field was so waterlogged the ground could not absorb any more water. It was hard going but I pressed on and gained, via the second stile, the secure metalled surface of the single track lane leading from Honer Farm to the reservoir that bore its name. I was now in a landscape of brown earth, faded grass verges, bare trees and grey sky, as if the rain had drained almost all colour from the land, leaving just a post rain dullness and dispiriting wetness. It was still, the wind having dropped as the front moved on and as if everything was held in abeyance awaiting a change, a metaphorical holding of meteorological breath.
I walked the wet lane, as Lapwings, their dark upperbody plumage burnished green and making them invisible against the dark ploughed earth close by, rose with peevish reedy calls and were betrayed by the stark contrast of their black and white underwings. I heard a car coming down the lane. Too fast. I stepped onto the grass verge as it careered around a bend in the lane to be confronted by my unexpected presence, suddenly visible. It did not slow, spraying my wet weather clothing from the roadside puddles it trashed, contemptuous of my being out in such weather at such an early hour.
The vehicle and its inconsiderate driver raced onwards and away, the noise immediately muffled by the contours of the land and the air was calm once again. Red legged Partridges, their calls grating out from dank hedgerows, let me know I was not alone in this vast sodden landscape of flooded fields and stick bare hawthorn hedges, harbouring just the occasional Great and Blue Tit, that seemed almost as surprised as me that they were sharing such desolation.
I reached the small reservoir, its presence indicated as a rising bank of grass by the muddy tractor churned footpath, the rutted strips each having collected its complement of rainwater. The reservoir was protected by a line of recently planted hawthorn saplings on the bank, a natural barrier but just in case there was a barbed wire fence at the top as an additional deterrent.
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I stood at one corner of the reservoir and surveyed the dull grey water reflecting a sky now visibly lightening as the rain clouds dispersed and found a few Coots and a couple of immature Tufted Ducks. There was no sign of the Long tailed Duck until it surfaced on the opposite side of the reservoir. A messily marbled, brown and white duck with a broad stubby duck's bill and a prominent pink band across it, signifying it was an immature male. The white areas of its plumage made it hard to distinguish its form against the water from a distance. It soon dived again and remained under the water for a long time, far longer than any other diving duck. This capacity to remain submerged for long periods is well known to birders and I was not particularly taken by surprise as time passed with no sign of it until there it was again, low in the water, before quickly submerging once more for another inordinately long period.
I moved round the reservoir to get closer and took some pictures of it when it surfaced. It knew of my presence for there was no cover to conceal me but it was no more troubled than to swim gently away from the bank and then just sit on the water regarding me and resolutely remaining on the water's surface, suspending its diving for food. So relaxed it closed an eye in sleep. When I moved off it returned to its diving and I left it, making my way back down the wet lane to Honer Farm.
I passed a very large muddy field, too wet to be ploughed, which still held the random spiky stalks and mushy rotten stems of some crop long since harvested. Many Pied Wagtails were feeding in the field, finding I know not what, but whatever it was they wanted it badly and after initially moving away flew back across the field, flying just above the earth, calling cheerily, immediately they realised I was no threat to them. There must have been in excess of a hundred and they were not alone. A small flock of Reed Buntings flew to the security of the bare hawthorns forming a vestigial hedge by the road, flirting their white outer tail feathers in anxiety and Yellowhammers, very much in the minority, chizzed in alarm from the same hedgerow. A male Yellowhammer's bright yellow head was a solitary and startling splash of colour, a counterpoint to the camouflaging black and greys of the wagtail's plumage and streaked browns of the buntings. Out on the far edge of the field was a stretch of flood water which two Common Redshank had temporarily commandeered, to stand asleep in the water on scarlet legs that supported their grey bodies and with bills tucked into their back feathers, secure in the knowledge of the distance between me on the road and they on the flood.
I returned to the North Wall, just as a huge flock of Lapwing, roused from the fields slowly crossed the sky and came over the footpath in a straggling hologram, flying on rounded paddle shaped wings, the tips broad rather than pointed, and showered down onto the saltmarsh where they would feel secure.
A bachelor party of Teal had replaced the swans on the Breech Pool that I had passed earlier. They were swimming around and displaying frantically to a nearby female, rising up in an exaggerated bow before jerking their heads down as their tails went up, creating little splashes of water as they did so and calling their curious, melodic, cricket like chirruping whistle.
I had met no one and the tide was now fully out but a main channel of gun metal coloured water remained, running out to the sea, bisecting the exposed mud and saltmarsh. The edge of this channel was littered with the resting bodies of Teal and Wigeon. The male Teal is the most demure and perfectly proportioned of ducks, compact and beautifully patterned. Many just stood quietly, content and replete but another pair fed quietly by the muddy shore where some Wigeon also rested, the males occasionally letting out a clear melodic whistle of alarm that rang out in the stillness.
A Grey Plover and a Common Redshank cased the exposed mud for worms, their elegant, delicately proportioned feet made obtuse and ugly by the glutinous mud that stuck to their soles.
The quiet and a lack of human presence was almost unique for this popular spot and was immensely satisfying. For one time only the North Wall and its currently unsullied wildness was mine and mine alone.
Just down the lane from where the car was parked lies Pagham Village and humanity but we were worlds apart for now. The wild cry of a Curlew came from far out on the saltmarsh from a place I would never know.
It was only nine in the morning and all was still as it began to rain again.
I walked the wet lane, as Lapwings, their dark upperbody plumage burnished green and making them invisible against the dark ploughed earth close by, rose with peevish reedy calls and were betrayed by the stark contrast of their black and white underwings. I heard a car coming down the lane. Too fast. I stepped onto the grass verge as it careered around a bend in the lane to be confronted by my unexpected presence, suddenly visible. It did not slow, spraying my wet weather clothing from the roadside puddles it trashed, contemptuous of my being out in such weather at such an early hour.
The vehicle and its inconsiderate driver raced onwards and away, the noise immediately muffled by the contours of the land and the air was calm once again. Red legged Partridges, their calls grating out from dank hedgerows, let me know I was not alone in this vast sodden landscape of flooded fields and stick bare hawthorn hedges, harbouring just the occasional Great and Blue Tit, that seemed almost as surprised as me that they were sharing such desolation.
I reached the small reservoir, its presence indicated as a rising bank of grass by the muddy tractor churned footpath, the rutted strips each having collected its complement of rainwater. The reservoir was protected by a line of recently planted hawthorn saplings on the bank, a natural barrier but just in case there was a barbed wire fence at the top as an additional deterrent.
.
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| Honer Reservoir |
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| The wet rutted footpath by the reservoir and hawthorn barrier |
I moved round the reservoir to get closer and took some pictures of it when it surfaced. It knew of my presence for there was no cover to conceal me but it was no more troubled than to swim gently away from the bank and then just sit on the water regarding me and resolutely remaining on the water's surface, suspending its diving for food. So relaxed it closed an eye in sleep. When I moved off it returned to its diving and I left it, making my way back down the wet lane to Honer Farm.
I passed a very large muddy field, too wet to be ploughed, which still held the random spiky stalks and mushy rotten stems of some crop long since harvested. Many Pied Wagtails were feeding in the field, finding I know not what, but whatever it was they wanted it badly and after initially moving away flew back across the field, flying just above the earth, calling cheerily, immediately they realised I was no threat to them. There must have been in excess of a hundred and they were not alone. A small flock of Reed Buntings flew to the security of the bare hawthorns forming a vestigial hedge by the road, flirting their white outer tail feathers in anxiety and Yellowhammers, very much in the minority, chizzed in alarm from the same hedgerow. A male Yellowhammer's bright yellow head was a solitary and startling splash of colour, a counterpoint to the camouflaging black and greys of the wagtail's plumage and streaked browns of the buntings. Out on the far edge of the field was a stretch of flood water which two Common Redshank had temporarily commandeered, to stand asleep in the water on scarlet legs that supported their grey bodies and with bills tucked into their back feathers, secure in the knowledge of the distance between me on the road and they on the flood.
I returned to the North Wall, just as a huge flock of Lapwing, roused from the fields slowly crossed the sky and came over the footpath in a straggling hologram, flying on rounded paddle shaped wings, the tips broad rather than pointed, and showered down onto the saltmarsh where they would feel secure.
A bachelor party of Teal had replaced the swans on the Breech Pool that I had passed earlier. They were swimming around and displaying frantically to a nearby female, rising up in an exaggerated bow before jerking their heads down as their tails went up, creating little splashes of water as they did so and calling their curious, melodic, cricket like chirruping whistle.
I had met no one and the tide was now fully out but a main channel of gun metal coloured water remained, running out to the sea, bisecting the exposed mud and saltmarsh. The edge of this channel was littered with the resting bodies of Teal and Wigeon. The male Teal is the most demure and perfectly proportioned of ducks, compact and beautifully patterned. Many just stood quietly, content and replete but another pair fed quietly by the muddy shore where some Wigeon also rested, the males occasionally letting out a clear melodic whistle of alarm that rang out in the stillness.
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| Eurasian Teal |
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| Eurasian Wigeon |
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| Grey Plover |
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| Common Redshank |
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| Pagham North Wall |
It was only nine in the morning and all was still as it began to rain again.
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