Scavengers

It’s a warm morning, and the riverside path is quiet. Three Cetti’s Warblers call and a Sedge Warbler tumbles up the bank and perches on a clump of tall grass, scolding as the dog ambles past. But far fewer Reed Warblers or Reed Buntings are calling than a few days back.

They are still here, though, most obvious when they cross the river between the reed bed on the far side and the ditches and cropped fields on this. The heads of the male Reed Buntings gleam like black-glossed bullets as they make their uncompromising flights, unlike the Reed Warblers flitting mouse-like across the water.

Thin calls by the river reveal two Common Sandpipers flying to one of the few remaining areas of mud left by the rising tide. In late May and early June it would be hard to say whether they were birds late heading north or early returning south. By now they are probably birds on return passage, though the species is so rarely absent from the river it seems like an honorary resident.

Meanwhile two Oystercatchers have established a new nest, a previous attempt further up the river having failed. This time they have chosen to sit on a piece of hessian fleece laid by the Environment Agency to help stabilise the bank. It is a suitably bare surface at this time of rampant vegetation, but one exposed to predators.

As if to make the point a Great Black-backed Gull passes overhead, one of three working along the river this morning. They are summering here, these birds, breeding attempts being extremely rare on the artificial cliffs of urban Sussex.

Their numbers are also increasing further from the coast. Food will be the reason, as they scavenge for carrion or seek live prey along the river. There is plenty of both. Dead fish regularly appear on the river banks, cast up by the tide, while I once saw a Great Black-backed Gull inexpertly and very slowly bludgeon an eel to death on this stretch of the Arun.

This one finds nothing, and flies ponderously north up the river, while higher and in the distance two Red Kites flap lazily northwards.