Author: Alan Duffy (Alan Duffy)

This month’s Inside Shoreham & Southwick magazine features the fabulous Widewater Lagoon, an accessible urban location full of fabulous birds and often visited by rarities.

Around 200 Gannets have been feeding off Shoreham and Lancing beaches this week, no doubt making the most of a generous supply of fish. Their dramatic dive-bombing is a sight to behold and not surprisingly, there were plenty of people watching this extraordinary behaviour. They were still fishing off the beach on Sunday afternoon so...

Two 1st-winter Little Gulls have been feeding in the surf by Southwick Power Station. They’re the world’s smallest gull species and the uber-talented Richard Allan even managed a shot of one bird with a Great Black-backed Gull in the background which is the world’s largest gull species! Little Gulls are doing well and expanding in their...

This week our pre-Christmas stroll attracted over 30 people – a superb turnout on a warm and pleasant morning. The aim was to showcase Brooklands as a brilliant location for urban birding. And with at least 26 species seen or heard, I think that we succeeded.  What makes Brooklands special is that it’s so accessible: mainly good paths, not...

Some very heartening news courtesy of the fantastic SDOS-linked Worthing and Adur Swifts Group, how have put up their first two Swift boxes at Greystoke Manor luxury residential care home in Ferring. With four more sites in the village set to take boxes before the spring, this is really positive news for our Swifts. The...

Inside Shoreham & Southwick magazine takes a look at the Merlin app, a superb tool for identifying birds by their calls and a great way to get people into birding.

Widewater Lagoon continues to be a super bird magnet these days, with a Slavonian Grebe the latest unusual visitor to the very special area of brackish water. Slavonian Grebes are not uncommon in the area but are usually seen on the sea, not on the lagoon, so this is a special visit for a bird...

13 hardy souls met at Farlington Marshes reserve on Tuesday, on a sunny but bitterly cold day. The day started quite bright, but very cold. A first visit to the reserve, which is near Portsmouth, for SDOS certainly delivered, with over 45 species seen, including Brent Goose, Curlew, Black-tailed Godwit, Marsh Harrier, Red Breasted Merganser,...