Williamson's Weekly Nature Notes

I know the feeling. I wish I knew how to play the piano, or how to pay myself a fat-cat bonus of a million pounds at the expense of poverty-stricken pensioners.

But at least I can tell one wading bird from another so I can't be a total failure. If only playing Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata was as easy. There are only about 15 species of wader commonly seen on the coast. A couple of days with the Collins Guide and you're there.

A few different ducks and geese, a grebe or two, may be a diver. Maybe 25 species altogether would make you a member of the rat-pack '“ those who stare knowingly through their telescopes, enjoying an aloof disdain for the rest of the world.

Let us start with a couple of waders commonly seen in winter in any of our south coast harbours; a godwit and a grey plover. You can see the godwit has a black tail, so it is a black-tailed godwit.

If it has a barred tail, it is a bar-tailed godwit. Narrow black bars run across its tail in that case. Mainly, it has an extremely long beak. When it flies, it looks like Concorde and its very long legs stick out behind.

Nevertheless it is a very graceful bird, as big as a magpie but with much better manners. It just likes mud. Small worms and snails live in mud so you'll find it near sewage outfalls such as that in Fishbourne creek near Chichester where the water is rich in nitrogen. In winter it loses its red neck. Now it has a grey neck.

About 700 black-tails live in Chichester Harbour for the next six months and 900 bar-tails.

As for the grey plover, usually 2,000 may be seen in Chichester Harbour and 900 in Pagham. These are like little grey lapwings without the green or the crest on the head.

The two often feed near each other on the tidal saltings.

Greys have a big black patch of feathers under the wing which you can more or less see as they hurtle along in a trip just above the tide. Again, they gang together at high tide in Fishbourne Creek often very close to the godwits.

They have a lovely ponderous way of wandering about on the mud, stopping often to listen for the turn of the worm beneath them. Lapwings do the same.