Country walk: Nutbourne Marshes

This week’s walk around Nutbourne Marshes with all its spectacular wild wetland birds is accessible from a small carpark down a minor road off the A259 at Southbourne.

The walk is 2.3 miles (3.5 kms) along the sea-shore and then the meadows and fields of Marsh Farm. Carpark reference is SU766051.

Walk east along the footpath for nearly a mile with the mudflats on your right.

At high tide a lot of the birds may be at a roost near the seawall ahead.

With autumn and winter coming on birds of 25 different species are dependent on this habitat.

While they rest at high tide they spend their time preening their feathers and sleeping.

As the tide draws back to uncover the mudflats they spread out to feed on the rich plankton found in this mud.

One of the birds you might see here is the avocet.

These are black and white waders with a very elegant shape of long legs and a curved upturned beak.

I have seen up to 100 here.

They are the icon motif of the RSPB, which organisation brought them back from the brink of extinction in the 1940s.

You will certainly see redshank, which look like a little man on red stilts as they wade about in the water.

The smallest wading bird usually to be seen here is the dunlin.

Sometimes a hundred of these looking like little white mice skitter about at the very edge of the tide.

Another wader you might see is the black-tailed godwit which feeds in the meadows here and flies very fast looking like a hail of Agincourt arrows as flocks exercise at great speed in the sky above.

Wigeon and teal are the wild duck here and are the birds often used by landscape artists to decorate movement in the sky.

There are seats along the seawall where you can sit and enjoy the scent of ozone while watching the sky and the sea in front.

One of the birds that feeds on the high tide is the brent goose which has arrived from its breeding grounds in Russia.

In the past 50 years I have seen several unusual birds along this strip of coastland including common sandpiper, Temminck’s stint and a redbreasted goose which had got lost but joined up with a flock of brent.

The walk includes a footpath circling back through Nutbourne village through the meadows and woods and joining up again with the outgoing footpath.