Virtual Field Trips
Dell Quay to Fishbourne
5. Birds
The top of Fishbourne channel above Dell Quay is very popular with large numbers of birds, especially in winter. Boats are not allowed to sail up here so the birds are not disturbed when they are feeding.
See Fishbourne Sea Wall panorama
Birds on mudflats
Mudflats
The water is shallow for most of the time and when the tide is out there are large areas of mud flats full of food for the birds.
Click here for more information on mudflats.
Swans
Swans
Some birds live here all the year round. There is a large flock of mute swans which can always be found somewhere between Dell Quay and Fishbourne.
Roosting birds on field
Roosting at high tide
When the tide is in, swans, ducks and geese sit on the water. Wading birds roost on the fields nearby until the mud is exposed and they can feed again.
Brent Geese
Birds in winter
In winter there can be thousands of birds scattered across the mud at low tide. Many of these are only here in the winter. They spend the summer further north, sometimes in the Arctic where the days are long and there is an abundance of insects to feed their young. However as autumn approaches, the days shorten and it becomes cold. The insects die so there is no food. In order to survive they must move elsewhere, so they migrate to where there is food. Brent geese come all the way from the Arctic in northern Russia to spend the winter feeding in Chichester Harbour.
Click here to see pictures of some of the birds you might see.
YROY in France - photograph: Sebastien Nedellec
YROY in Norway - photograph - Arne Vanebo
Migrating Birds
Some of the birds that come to Chichester Harbour only come in small numbers and we don’t know very much about their life the rest of the year. One of these is the greenshank. It visits the harbour mainly in the autumn and sometimes in the spring but nobody knew exactly where it went for the rest of the year. Chichester Harbour Conservancy has been involved in a research project, which is trying to find out exactly where they go.
They have discovered one greenshank that spends its summers in Norway and its winters in France, visiting Chichester Harbour in the autumn. Each individual bird can be identified by the pattern of coloured rings on its legs.
To find out more about what they have discovered so far, click here.
To find out more about what it is like for a bird to migrate, try playing the
Greenshank Migration Game.
Click here to discover more about bird migration.
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