Birdwatch

In their place are a few pairs of shelduck, female mallards with their broods of ducklings in tow, lapwings and redshanks on their nesting territories and, appearing for the lucky few only, a fine drake garganey.

Hobbies, splendid migrant falcons, are also here in numbers now, the occasional sighting of last month being replaced by regular groups of two or three hunting small insects over the brooks.

Few birds are as incessantly and gracefully on the move as a black tern Chlidonias niger.

Most people think of terns as seabirds and most are. Black terns, however, are a little different. They belong to a trio of species known as marsh terns that breed in large colonies on freshwater wetlands across central, southern and eastern Europe (white-winged and whiskered are the other two).

Unlike the sea terns, they feed mainly on insects rather than fish, and in their feeding habits are more akin to swallows, constantly dipping, swooping and gliding over the water's surface in search of food.

For full feature see West Sussex Gazette June 11