- Adur Marine Life Reports
- Coastal & Intertidal 2018
Reports
from
the sea, shore
and coast, including Widewater Lagoon
Information
Coastal saline lagoons and the Water Framework Directive (NECR039)
A number of coastal saline lagoons in the UK have been identified as ‘water bodies’ under the Water Framework Directive. This means that there is a requirement to develop type-based classification tools to help assess their ecological status. This study was commissioned by Natural England to inform future work of the UK Technical Advisory Group and Marine Task Team in developing a national consistent approach to the assessment of lagoons under the Water Framework Directive.
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(Community Group) |
(Community Group) |
Events
8
June
Adur World Oceans
Day
World
Oceans Day was first declared as 8th June at the Earth Summit in Rio de
Janeiro in 1992.
Events
occurred all around the world on and around this day.
Adur
World Oceans Day
CANCELLED
2018
Reports
25 October 2018
Glasswort
Widewater
15 October 2018
Wall Lizard
The
sun warmed the air (19.2 °C)
in the afternoon, and prompted the Wall
Lizards,
Podarcis
muralis,
on and around the carnot
wall of Shoreham
Fort. Nineteen separate lizards were noted
in sizes from juvenile to adult. This was a fair showing and the best since
March
2017. A Little Egret
was seen feeding on a goby
at Silver Sands.
Adur
Lizards & Snakes & Amphibians
4 July 2018
Childing
PInk, Small
Copper Butterfly, Rock Samphire
Sea
Heath, Hawkweed Ox-tongue
Widewater
The grass was brown and parched and some flowers were wilting as the dry period continued. I saw my first Small Copper Butterfly of the year over the pebbles and gravel next to Widewater Lagoon. A Burnet Moth flew around without a pause, and whilst trying to find the Small Copper for a photograph all I spotted was a Small Skipper, two Meadow Browns, two Gatekeepers and frequent Large Whites. On Widewater Lagoon the pair of Mute Swans were accompanied by one large cygnet.
Sea
Heath
Widewater
Three adult Wall Lizards, Podarcis muralis, skitted over the carnot walls of Shoreham Fort. Blown about in the breeze, here was one double Childing Pink amongst a dozen plus flowers and a hundred plants with dead heads and Hare's Foot Clover on the very parched Silver Sands. The Kidney Vetch had ceased flowering. The tidal defence scheme involved depositing builder's sand next to the Childing PInk area. However this sand is coarser than than the silver sand. It has not yet been colonised by plant life.
26 June 2018
Sea
Heath with
Sea Spurrey
Widewater
10
June 2018
An
adult Wall Lizard,
Podarcis
muralis, skitted across the vegetated shingle
and right up to the top of the carnot
wall of Shoreham
Fort. On the shingle by the fort there
was a large expanse of Viper's Bugloss.
Wall
Lizard, Viper's Bugloss, Tree
Mallow
Starry
Clover, Viper's Bugloss
Shoreham
Fort Beach
7 June 2018
Shoreham Beach (East & West)
4 June 2018
Shoreham Beach Central
Shoreham Beach East
It was the first time I had seen an adult Wall Lizard, Podarcis muralis, from an isolated patch of mixed vegetation on the shingle, but still on Shoreham Fort land at the far eastern end of Shoreham Beach. On a sunny breezy day the most noticeable plants in flower were large expanses of Red Valerian, abundant diminished Sea Kale, patches of Thrift, the upright Tree Mallow, clumps of Oxford Ragwort and Curled Dock, with occasional Common Mallow, the calyx seeding stage of the ground-hugging Starry Clover and occasional spikes of Viper's Bugloss and Yellow-horned Poppy. At the eastern end of the beach, there were still stands of Silver Ragwort which were budding with flowering imminent.
There were multiple reports of the shallow sea turning brown, probably caused by an algal bloom of Phaeocystis pouchetti.
2 June 2018
Painted Lady
A Moderate
Breeze (Force 4)
blew the shingle plants
around on Shoreham Beach to my distraction.
The same south-westerlies may have helped
my first immigrant Painted Lady
of the year into the shelter of the swathes of Red
Valerian on the pebbles east of the Church
of the Good Shepherd. Whilst searching of this colourful butterfly,
I chanced upon half a dozen Silver Y Moths
fluttering around the nectar flowers.
Adur
Butterfly List 2018
Shoreham Beach West
11 May 2018
Bird's
Foot Trefoil
Thrift,
Sea
Kale
Sea
Campion
Widewater
Margins
My first male Common Blue Butterfly of the year visited Bird's Foot Trefoil on the Widewater shingle margins.
6 April 2018
Wall Lizard
On
a day the weather forecasters predicted
to be warmer than it actually was my first
reptiles of the year were a couple of Wall
Lizards,
Podarcis
muralis,
by Shoreham
Fort. With
a wind
chill and blustered about by a steady Force
5 from the east, I
did not feel inclined to search for any more.
Adur
Lizards & Snakes
24 March 2018
Pintail on Widewater
A duck
was seen on Widewater
in the afternoon. I did not recognise it immediately in poor light at the
eastern end in the middle of the lagoon, so a Pintail
is unlikely to be a regular visitor to Shoreham.
I have not recorded one before.
Pintail
SOS status: Fairly common winter visitor and scarce on observed passage;
occasionally summers and has bred.
20
March 2018
An
Avocet
is spotted on the exposed waterlogged mud of Brooklands
Boating Lake. The Avocet
is
a rare visitor to the lower Adur Valley
and local shores.
(SOS:
Scarce winter visitor and passage migrant; scarce and localised breeder
in Sussex)
The weather was pleasant enough to spot my first bumblebee of the year, a Buff-tailed Bumblebee visited a flower shop in Lancing.
A Kestrel hovered over the Tamarisk at Widewater.
1 February
2018
Wrapped
up with gloves and a woolly hat, I cycled
the circular route to Lancing and back, via Shoreham
Beach where the large lorries had churned
up the shingle above the high tide mark of Shoreham
Beach Nature Reserve, probably obliterating
two scarce plants for Sussex,
namely the Sea Rocket
and Ray's Knotgrass.
Red-breasted
Merganser 
On
Widewater a householder spooked a female Red-breasted
Merganser into rapid flight from the shallow
eastern end of the lagoon. Three minutes later a Kestrel
flew rapidly over with a large item of prey in its talons.
Four
Mute
Swans occupied the island at the eastern
end with a Little Egret
foraging around the margins. A further two Swans
were on the water by the bridge.
Fencing around Brooklands Lake made it a rather unattractive place to visit, although the diggers for the remedial work were not active. Fresh water from the Teville Stream ran rapidly over the small weir and into the lake. The rippled water hosted a Moorhen and a Coot.
25 January 2018
Sawbills
at Widewater Lagoon South Lancing
Photograph
& Comments by Robert North
Left to right was a female Red breasted Merganser followed a male. At the top, a male Goosander was followed by a female.
14 January 2018
Sponge-covered Scallop
On a cool (air temp 4.0 °C - 8.2 °C with wind chill) clear day there was very little wildlife of note. Lignite washed ashore on the strandline of Shoreham Beach where a sponge-covered scallop stood out amongst the strands of seaweeds.
12
January 2018
In
the early afternoon these were no notenworthy birds on Widewater. Just
a Turnstone
foraging on the shingle edge of the sea nearby.
