Where to Watch Birds in Surrey and Sussex

Emma Chaplin
, 22 March 2024
Where to Watch Birds in Surrey and Sussex
Matt Phelps with his new book

We talk to Species Recovery Officer Matt Phelps about his new co-authored book, Where to Watch Birds in Surrey and Sussex

Tell us about your new book

Back in the autumn of 2021 I was contacted by Jim Martin from the natural history department of Bloomsbury Publishing, explaining that they were in the process of updating all the old versions of various titles in this series (Where to Watch Birds in Hampshire, Dorset and the Isle of Wight, for example) and asking if I would be interested in writing an updated edition of the Surrey and Sussex book. The last edition was in 2009 and also included Kent, which the publisher decided not to included this time (it will likely be in a future ‘London and the South East’ edition). When I realised the scale of the task ahead I got in touch with my birding friend Ed [Stubbs] and asked if he’d like to co-write it with me. He said yes and the rest is history! The writing process basically took us about a year, including visiting as many of the sites featured in the book (over 100!). We also took great care to try and get as much of the copy as possible checked over by relevant local birders and land managers, who we knew would have more intimate knowledge of the sites.

Who is it aimed at?

Anyone with an interest in birds and finding out more about where to see birds in Surrey and Sussex. We have tried to pitch the tone of the book in such a way that it will be of interest both to experienced birders living in the region, birders visiting the area from elsewhere or people who have perhaps only recently developed an interest in birds and are keen to find out where they might want to visit in their local area.

Goshawk © Paul Marten
Goshawk © Paul Marten

Are there any surprises in it, would you say?

We have included a number of sites which have not been featured in previous editions, including Woods Mill, RSPB Medmerry, the Knepp Estate and Tice’s Meadow, all of which have really risen to prominence in terms of their nature value and popularity in the past decade or so. Perhaps the biggest headline that’s come out of the publication of the book though has been the fact that we have documented a few reliable sites in the region for two of our scarcest breeding bird of prey species: Goshawk and Honey Buzzard. This was a decision which was made very carefully in consultation with various people including Mark Mallalieu from the Sussex Ornithological Society Scientific Committee, and we have only revealed viewpoints for these species, not explicitly given locations of any nest sites. I have spent quite a bit of time in recent years monitoring these two amazing bird species in Sussex – Honey Buzzard in particular – and it’s really exciting for readers of this book to have the opportunity to discover where they might see them for themselves.

Are there many differences between Surrey and Sussex? 

I guess the most obvious difference is that Surrey doesn’t have a coastline! In being a completely landlocked county neighbouring Greater London, the suite of birds on offer is naturally quite different and somewhat more limited in Surrey than in East and West Sussex. Nonetheless, it still has some amazing sites, many of which are far more accessible by public transport than a lot of sites in Sussex. One of the key things Ed and I tried to make of point of doing in this book was helping people who don’t have access to a car, or perhaps simply prefer not to drive, find their way to sites via bus and train which would offer them a great birding experience. We really wanted to make sure this book has something for everyone and we’re really proud of what we’ve produced.

You can buy the book for £25.99 here

Leave a comment
Time Δ Debug Message - Perch Runway 3.2
1782716475.84930 [906] SELECT p.pagePath, pr.routePattern, pr.routeRegExp, p.pageTemplate, pr.routeOrder, s.settingValue AS siteOffline FROM swt_pages_staging p LEFT JOIN swt_page_routes pr ON p.pageID=pr.pageID LEFT JOIN swt_settings s ON s.settingID='siteOffline' UNION SELECT NULL AS pagePath, pr2.routePattern, pr2.routeRegExp, pr2.templatePath AS pageTemplate, pr2.routeOrder, NULL AS siteOffline FROM swt_page_routes pr2 WHERE templateID!=0 ORDER BY routeOrder ASC, pagePath ASC
1782716475.87760.0283Matched route: news/[slug:s]
1782716475.87780.0001Server address: 216.73.216.31
1782716475.87780.0001Using master page: /templates/pages/blog/post.php
1782716475.87790.0001Page arguments: 
Array
(
    [0] => /news/where-to-watch-birds-in-surrey-and-sussex
    [s] => where-to-watch-birds-in-surrey-and-sussex
    [1] => where-to-watch-birds-in-surrey-and-sussex
)
1782716475.87830.0004 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/news/post' LIMIT 1
1782716475.87950.0012 [86] SELECT DISTINCT settingID, settingValue FROM swt_settings WHERE userID=0
1782716475.88160.0021 [1] SELECT locationID FROM swt_shop_tax_locations WHERE locationIsHome=1 LIMIT 1
1782716475.88230.0006INSERT INTO swt_shop_cart(memberID,locationID,currencyID,cartPricing,cartProperties) VALUES(NULL,'1',47,'standard','[]')
1782716475.88430.0021 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_shop_cart WHERE cartID=22407666
1782716475.8850.0007 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_shop_cart WHERE cartID=22407666
1782716475.88570.0007 [nil] SELECT * FROM swt_shop_sales WHERE saleFrom<='2026-06-29 07:01:00' AND saleTo>'2026-06-29 07:01:00' AND saleActive=1 AND saleDeleted IS NULL ORDER BY saleOrder ASC
1782716475.88720.0015 [1] SELECT SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS DISTINCT tbl.* FROM ( SELECT idx.itemID, main.*, idx2.indexValue as sortval FROM swt_blog_index idx JOIN swt_blog_posts main ON idx.itemID=main.postID AND idx.itemKey='postID' JOIN swt_blog_index idx2 ON idx.itemID=idx2.itemID AND idx.itemKey='postID' AND idx2.indexKey='_id' WHERE 1=1 AND ((idx.indexKey='postSlug' AND idx.indexValue='where-to-watch-birds-in-surrey-and-sussex')) AND idx.itemID=idx2.itemID AND idx.itemKey=idx2.itemKey GROUP BY idx.itemID, idx2.indexValue, postID ) as tbl WHERE (postStatus='Published' AND postDateTime<='2026-06-29 07:01:00' ) GROUP BY itemID, sortval ORDER BY sortval ASC LIMIT 0, 10
1782716475.890.0028 [1] SELECT FOUND_ROWS() AS `count`
1782716475.89060.0006 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_blog_posts WHERE postID=3331 AND postStatus='Published' AND postDateTime<='2026-06-29 07:01:00'
1782716475.89160.001 [13] SELECT * FROM swt_blog_sections ORDER BY sectionTitle ASC
1782716475.89240.0008 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_blogs ORDER BY blogTitle ASC
1782716475.89320.0008 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_categories WHERE catID=195 LIMIT 1
1782716475.89390.0007 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_categories WHERE catID=45 LIMIT 1
1782716475.89450.0006Using template: /templates/blog/post.html
1782716475.89470.0002 [162] SELECT catID, catPath FROM swt_categories
1782716475.89570.001 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_blog_posts WHERE postStatus='Published' AND postDateTime<='2026-06-29 07:01:00' AND postSlug='where-to-watch-birds-in-surrey-and-sussex'
1782716475.91630.0206Using template: /templates/blog/post.html
1782716475.91690.0006 [250] SELECT country, countryID FROM swt_shop_countries WHERE countryActive=1 ORDER BY country ASC
1782716475.91860.0017Using template: /templates/pages/attributes/seo.html
1782716475.91880.0002 [1] SELECT regionID, regionTemplate, regionPage, regionRev AS rev FROM swt_content_regions WHERE regionKey='Banner image' AND (regionPage='/news/post' OR regionPage='*')
1782716475.91980.0009 [nil] SELECT * FROM ( SELECT idx.itemID, c.regionID, idx.pageID, c.itemJSON, idx2.indexValue as sortval FROM swt_content_index idx JOIN swt_content_items c ON idx.itemID=c.itemID AND idx.itemRev=c.itemRev AND idx.regionID=c.regionID JOIN swt_content_index idx2 ON idx.itemID=idx2.itemID AND idx.itemRev=idx2.itemRev AND idx2.indexKey='_order' WHERE ((idx.regionID=104 AND idx.itemRev=0)) AND idx.itemID=idx2.itemID AND idx.itemRev=idx2.itemRev ) as tbl GROUP BY itemID, pageID, itemJSON, sortval, regionID ORDER BY sortval ASC
1782716475.92110.0014 [82] SELECT * FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageNew=0 AND pageHidden=0 AND pageDepth >=0 AND pageDepth<=2 ORDER BY pageTreePosition ASC
1782716475.92430.0031 [1] SELECT pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/news/post' LIMIT 1
1782716475.92490.0006 [2] SELECT pageID FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageTreePosition IN ('000-006-001', '000-006', '000') ORDER BY pageTreePosition DESC
1782716475.92690.0021Using template: /templates/navigation/ps_nav_template.html
1782716475.9270.0001 [6] Using template: /templates/navigation/ps_nav_template_children.html
1782716475.92780.0008 [4] Using template: /templates/navigation/ps_nav_template_children.html
1782716475.92830.0005 [29] Using template: /templates/navigation/ps_nav_template_children.html
1782716475.93120.0029 [10] Using template: /templates/navigation/ps_nav_template_children.html
1782716475.93230.0011 [7] Using template: /templates/navigation/ps_nav_template_children.html
1782716475.9330.0007 [9] Using template: /templates/navigation/ps_nav_template_children.html
1782716475.93550.0025 [1] SELECT pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/news/post' OR pageSortPath='/news/post' LIMIT 1
1782716475.93640.001 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageHidden=0 AND pageNew=0 AND pageTreePosition IN ('000-006-001', '000-006', '000') ORDER BY pageTreePosition
1782716475.93860.0022 [1] Using template: /templates/navigation/breadcrumbs.html
1782716475.93910.0005Using template: /templates/blog/post.html
1782716475.93940.0003 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_blog_authors WHERE authorID='20' LIMIT 1
1782716475.94020.0008Using template: /templates/blog/author.html
1782716475.94050.0004 [1] SELECT SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS DISTINCT tbl.* FROM ( SELECT idx.itemID, main.*, idx2.indexValue as sortval FROM swt_blog_index idx JOIN swt_blog_posts main ON idx.itemID=main.postID AND idx.itemKey='postID' JOIN swt_blog_index idx2 ON idx.itemID=idx2.itemID AND idx.itemKey='postID' AND idx2.indexKey='_id' WHERE 1=1 AND ((idx.indexKey='postSlug' AND idx.indexValue='where-to-watch-birds-in-surrey-and-sussex')) AND idx.itemID=idx2.itemID AND idx.itemKey=idx2.itemKey GROUP BY idx.itemID, idx2.indexValue, postID ) as tbl WHERE (postStatus='Published' AND postDateTime<='2026-06-29 07:01:00' ) GROUP BY itemID, sortval ORDER BY sortval ASC LIMIT 0, 1
1782716475.94260.0021 [1] SELECT FOUND_ROWS() AS `count`
1782716475.94320.0006 [1] Using template: /templates/blog/post.html
1782716475.94610.0029Using template: /templates/blog/comment_form.html
1782716475.94720.0011 [nil] SELECT * FROM swt_blog_comments WHERE 1=1 AND postID=3331 AND commentStatus='LIVE' ORDER BY FIELD(webmentionType, 'like', 'repost', 'comment', NULL) ASC, commentDateTime ASC
1782716475.99650.0493 [0] Using template: /templates/blog/comment.html
1782716475.99670.0002Using template: /templates/blog/post.html
1782716475.9970.0003 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_blog_authors WHERE authorID='20' LIMIT 1
1782716475.99780.0008 [1] SELECT pageID, pageParentID, pageDepth, pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/what-we-do' OR pageSortPath='/what-we-do' LIMIT 1
1782716475.99840.0006 [1] SELECT pageID, pageParentID, pageDepth, pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageTreePosition='000-002' LIMIT 1
1782716475.9990.0006 [7] SELECT * FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageNew=0 AND pageHidden=0 AND pageTreePosition LIKE '000-002%' AND pageDepth >=1 AND pageDepth<=2 ORDER BY pageTreePosition ASC
1782716476.00110.0022 [1] SELECT pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/news/post' LIMIT 1
1782716476.00190.0008 [2] SELECT pageID FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageTreePosition IN ('000-006-001', '000-006', '000') ORDER BY pageTreePosition DESC
1782716476.00410.0022 [6] Using template: /templates/navigation/footer-nav.html
1782716476.00490.0008 [1] SELECT pageID, pageParentID, pageDepth, pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/make-a-difference' OR pageSortPath='/make-a-difference' LIMIT 1
1782716476.00540.0006 [1] SELECT pageID, pageParentID, pageDepth, pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageTreePosition='000-005' LIMIT 1
1782716476.0060.0005 [38] SELECT * FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageNew=0 AND pageHidden=0 AND pageTreePosition LIKE '000-005%' ORDER BY pageTreePosition ASC
1782716476.00820.0022 [1] SELECT pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/news/post' LIMIT 1
1782716476.00870.0005 [2] SELECT pageID FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageTreePosition IN ('000-006-001', '000-006', '000') ORDER BY pageTreePosition DESC
1782716476.01050.0019 [10] Using template: /templates/navigation/footer-nav.html
1782716476.01480.0042 [1] SELECT pageID, pageParentID, pageDepth, pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/visit' OR pageSortPath='/visit' LIMIT 1
1782716476.01570.0009 [1] SELECT pageID, pageParentID, pageDepth, pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageTreePosition='000-004' LIMIT 1
1782716476.01620.0005 [30] SELECT * FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageNew=0 AND pageHidden=0 AND pageTreePosition LIKE '000-004%' AND pageDepth >=1 AND pageDepth<=2 ORDER BY pageTreePosition ASC
1782716476.01860.0024 [1] SELECT pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/news/post' LIMIT 1
1782716476.01910.0005 [2] SELECT pageID FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageTreePosition IN ('000-006-001', '000-006', '000') ORDER BY pageTreePosition DESC
1782716476.02090.0018 [29] Using template: /templates/navigation/footer-nav.html
1782716476.02320.0023 [1] SELECT pageID, pageParentID, pageDepth, pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/make-a-difference' OR pageSortPath='/make-a-difference' LIMIT 1
1782716476.02380.0006 [1] SELECT pageID, pageParentID, pageDepth, pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageTreePosition='000-005' LIMIT 1
1782716476.02420.0003 [11] SELECT * FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageNew=0 AND pageHidden=0 AND pageTreePosition LIKE '000-005%' AND pageDepth >=1 AND pageDepth<=2 ORDER BY pageTreePosition ASC
1782716476.02610.0019 [1] SELECT pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/news/post' LIMIT 1
1782716476.02660.0005 [2] SELECT pageID FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageTreePosition IN ('000-006-001', '000-006', '000') ORDER BY pageTreePosition DESC
1782716476.02850.0019 [10] Using template: /templates/navigation/footer-nav.html
1782716476.02970.0012Request time: 0.1825
1782716476.02970Process time: 0.1823
1782716476.02970Memory: 1.6512