There was torrential rain on the morning of the walk round the reserve but the rain had stopped by the time we assembled at the Tide Mills car park to meet the East Sussex County Council Ranger, Andy Mitchell, who looks after the site. There are only two County Council Rangers to look after habitats ranging from Eastbourne to Ditchling and beyond.
The Reserve comprises most of the flat land between the A259 and the railway from just north-west of the Tide Mills car park to the new road to the cement works and the deep-water port of Newhaven (a.k.a. “The Road to Nowhere”).
It is an area of marsh, ponds and scrub with some land low enough to be wet even in the driest summers and some, a little higher being suitable for grazing cattle. Most of the ponds are freshwater although one, some distance from the sea, is brackish and tidal. Andy thought that there might be a shingle bank beneath which connects it to the sea.
There being no access through the reserve, the walk went around the perimeter, first following the cycle track with the occasional foray onto paths parallel to it, then alongside the new road before turning south-east to follow the perimeter of the wild ground back to the cycle track. There is a thriving population of great crested newts throughout the reserve including many which have been transported there as other sites are threatened by development. In bumper years there are also many herons waiting to catch them!
There were many plants to be seen, too many to record here. Chris Brewer has a full list, but the most interesting to me were a single Pyramidal Orchid, Smooth Tare, Hemlock and Dyer’s Greenweed, the latter a plant once used to produce a greenish-yellow natural dye. (pictured left).
Chris tells me that he saw three garden escapes on the New Road- Lamb’s Ears (Stachys byzantine), Chilean Potato tree (Solanum crispum) and a Germander, probably Purple tails (Teucrium hircanicum)
There was a good tally of birds seen or heard. Sheila Lothian reports wrens, dunnock, house sparrow, bluetits, long-tailed tits, linnet, chaffinch, goldfinches, greenfinch, reed warbler, sedge warblers, Cetti’s warblers, reed buntings, song thrushes, blackbirds, wood pigeons, green woodpecker, carrion crows, kestrel and herring gulls. With thanks to Andy, an excellent guide.
From the Seaford Natural History Society newsletter
