On Wednesday 14 October I ventured away from the Eastbourne area, taking the train to Rye to visit the magnificent Rye Harbour Nature Reserve. And it was just as good as I remembered, though a dry summer of heatwaves has led to severe drought across much of southern England and this was very apparent in the low water levels at the reserve, meaning the birds were even more distant than usual. Also, I hadn’t realised that the northern half of the reserve was closed due to a deadly combination of bird flu, avian botulism, and periods of blue-green algae in the waterways. Not surprisingly, this rather restricted where I could walk, but it’s a huge reserve so I still managed to clock up several miles and saw some very nice fauna and flora during my visit.

As the Glassworts (Salicornia species) lose their chlorophyll they change to vivid shades of red and purple, rust and terracotta making the autumn colours of the saltmarsh just gorgeous.

There were two birding highlights for me during this visit; the first will be revealed in tomorrow’s blog, the second was the wonderful surprise of finding another Dartford warbler (you’ll recall I also found one at Belle Tout). This little one was rather more of the skulking type, and only allowed me to get a couple of distant photos.

Redshanks were abundant. This one was grabbing 40 winks in a quiet corner.

Wigeon were also plentiful. Snoozing, cruising, and munching on vegetation – such is the life of this handsome duck.

A sprinkling of wildflowers were still in bloom on the shingle; this lovely Viper’s bugloss (Echium vulgare) was one.

I was also delighted to see this new-to-me Twiggy Mullein (Verbascum virgatum), a very pretty wildflower with quite tall stems covered in lovely yellow flowers, another locally common shingle-growing plant.