Great Crested Grebe at Shoreham

It was a day I remember almost entirely from beginning to end, every detail in between. We (me and Rose) went to Shoreham, just down the coast from Brighton. We had been told of a nature reserve on the beach with wild flowers and accompanying animals and so went to explore.

Off the crawling meandering bus we wandered against aggressive wind towards the river, which we followed for a while, hoping to see river birds, or any birds, but there was little except mild bending water. Though the sun shone generously in intervals, the wind was unpleasant and made it cold. We walked partway down the river path which would have led to Guildford if we kept going long enough, but we turned back on ourselves across a bridge to what we hoped was a more populous nature world. However the sunny side of the river offered only seagulls and bushes.

I was lacklustre. The wind was annoying me. We went to see the houseboats, a colourful row of converted battleships and barges aground on the riverbank. And then in the river between the boats in the boat street, a bird sailed past. We followed it. It wasn’t a duck or a swan, but something in between. I took photos on my camera and zoomed in to try and see it closer. (I had forgotten the binoculars.) It was a great crested grebe. We followed it excitedly up the river, trying to get closer to it to take a good photo. It just floated along, lazy, majestic, like a purple Mandarin prince visiting from the East.

At home I had a bird magazine with a GCG on the front. I never expected it to make the jump from magazine cover to real life. When we spotted the GCG, the day changed from wind-beaten birdless amble to victory march. The trip had been worth it if only for this and everything else afterwards was coloured by the sight of this colourful bird, long after he had ducked under the water under the bridge away from us  - the subsequent desolate beach stretch of nature reserve peppered with sea cabbage and viper bugloss, the peninsula fortress, the long harbour dead end retracing of steps, the almost missed bus, the fish and chips, all coloured by the sighting of this obliging unexpected bird.

My unimpressive photo

Among a wealth of birds...2

At the Arundel duckworld some of the ducks were caged in large landscaped pens. These were presumably the rarer species less accustomed to survival with rivals, put there to remove all possible risks and ease them back into numbers. In one of these contained environments, a small yellow bird flittered into view. It was either a yellow wagtail or a grey wagtail. Both have distinctive breast yellownesses. With hindsight I’d say it was the yellow wagtail.

It was confined in the cage as far as we could see; as far as we could see, there were no escape holes in the mesh. The yellow wagtail flew around the cage in and out of view and outshone the rare ducks like a secret bonus bird.

We wondered if it was happy in that cage without family and potential mates. The bird attendees must know it’s in there and have deemed it appropriate to leave it in there, and we trust them to know what’s best for the birds, but still it seems a bit lonely.