Christine's walking & birds blog

A room in Chichester booked weeks ago at a discount price meant no money-back cancellation, so despite a grim weather forecast we were committed. As it turned out Saturday was brilliant with unbroken sunshine and just a chilly breeze taking the edge off things, so we enjoyed our walk at Pagham Harbour.

We watched a police helicopter circling over the harbour, and then a coastguard vehicle came lurching onto the beach. They stopped and showed us a photo of a grey-haired man, asking if we'd seen him. We both longed to say "Why, what's he done?" but they probably get fed up with hearing that. In any case, he might have been just a poor old guy who'd gone missing from a nursing home rather than a hardened criminal.

The most notable sight in the harbour was a very large flock of knot, still looking winter-grey. Back at the visitor centre (it's now RSPB by the way) we found four coastguard vehicles and a bunch of blue-overalled men enjoying a cup of tea in the sun. We thought of walking the other way round the harbour for the paddyfield warbler but we were too tired.

We had a reasonable meal at the hotel, although Greger queried the bill and got it changed, in an episode that will always be known as the Great Chichester Bread-and-Butter Scam.

The following day was a washout. But we stuck obstinately to our plan and drove to Farlington Marshes, walking out in pouring rain to the first bend in the sea wall. The tide was going out and there were loads of dunlin with some grey plovers feeding tantalisingly close; but the optics kept misting up and we got so cold we had to return to the car. A distant avocet was a nice find, and a site tick for us.

Stupidly, after a cup of coffee, I decided to venture out again. I let go of the telescope and tripod to take a pointless shot of some dunlin, only to hear them crash to the ground in the wind.

I spent some time searching the ground for a missing part to the mounting, only to realise that nothing was missing; instead it had been snapped off, rendering the tripod unusable and probably making it impossible to use the scope with another tripod.

Making my way back along the sea wall against biting wind and rain and without gloves, my hands got as cold as I'd ever wish them to be. We decided to give up.

We drove home in relentless rain, although on a high part of the M3 a bit north of Winchester the fields were speckled with white, and the thermometer in the car showed an outside temperature of only 2 degrees.