As autumn slides into winter, there’s an astonishing wildlife performance for you to see and hear at Rye Harbour Nature Reserve.
Golden Plovers are lovely, gentle-faced wading birds that are huddled together in huge numbers at the nature reserve right now.
From the Rye Harbour village car park or bus stop, you should head for the sea, walk past the Discovery Centre (coffee stop optional) and hopefully you will hear the Golden Plovers’ soft chimes before you see them from the Gooders Hide on your right. Their calls, like plaintive bells, bring to mind kindly ghosts calling lost loves. There may be 2 to 3,000 of them by mid-winter, tightly packed on the islands. On a calm, still day their calls hang over the landscape, soothing all souls lucky enough to hear them.
You would do well to sit in the hide and watch, perhaps becoming mesmerised as they hold their resting pose in a soft mosaic. Because, if you’re lucky, something truly amazing might be about to occur. A predator may enter the stage, scheming to disrupt this tranquil tableau. A Peregrine, Merlin, or Sparrowhawk is the most likely perpetrator.
And then boom! The birds explode and rise in controlled panic. The Golden Plovers form extraordinary pom-pom flocks, circling in vast numbers to confuse the enemy. As the birds turn as one, bright white bellies instantly switch to sparkling golden backs, then back again and so on as you watch transfixed. With ever-changing shapes and forms, their programme is set to infinitely random, but with a distinctive overall pattern. Better than any firework display, easy!
Once the threat has passed, the birds will relax and drift back down to favoured islands to resume their chilled-out vigil.
Golden Plovers are relatives of Lapwings (aka Green Plovers), with which they often mingle. They are relatively short-beaked, medium-sized wading birds that only breed in the UK on lonely moorlands in the north and Scotland.
They feed mostly at night on damp grasslands, but roost in the day and usually come to rest within the protective fence at Rye Harbour Nature Reserve, having secured the winter time-share slot that the breeding terns and waders hold in summer.
Sussex Wildlife Trust’s next Guide in a Hide event, staffed by Friends of Rye Harbour Nature Reserve volunteers, takes place from 10am to 3pm on Saturday 6 December. It’s in the Gooders Hide. Do drop in and hopefully the Golden Plovers will be the star attraction. More details here.
STOP PRESS! At the time of publication cold weather has forced the Golden Plovers to feed during the day on pastures at Camber, as it’s hard to find worms at night in the frost, so the number of the birds at Rye Harbour is currently low. They should be back soon!
Image Credits: Barry Yates .